In a fairytale script, Ferrari took top honours at the Centenary Le Mans 24 Hour race last weekend. It’s been 58 years since the Italian Scuderia’s last victory and they haven’t had a serious tilt at it for some time so it was a quite unexpected win.
They say that it takes about three years before you become fully competitive at Le Mans, but Ferrari took advantage of this being the first year of a new Hypercar class.
Their 499P was driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi and even a last minute pit stop scare when the car wouldn’t restart couldn’t keep them from winning.
Ferrari haven’t had a factory entry since 1973 but it was from 1960 to 1965 that they really hit their purple patch with six wins in a row.
Henry Ford got fed up with this and decided to buy Ferrari. Wily Enzo Ferrari had no intentions of selling to Ford but used the negotiations to get a better price when he sold to Fiat instead as he always intended to do.
Incensed, Henry Ford ordered his engineers to create a car to wipe the floor with Ferrari and so the GT40 came into being, so named because it was just 40 inches high. It took Ford a few attempts to win Le Mans, but win they did and multiple times, so Henry had the last laugh.
I’ve had the privilege of driving the modern version of the GT40 at Ford’s proving grounds in Utah and the historic GT40 which first won at Le Mans was there the same day. With its value incalculable, we didn’t drive it of course.
In all, 16 Hypercars, from Ferrari, Porsche, Toyota, Cadillac, Peugeot, Glickenhaus and Vanwall were represented.
Ferrari and Toyota made the initial running with Sébastien Buemi in the Toyota GR010 Hybrid winning the sprint off the line from slot three on the grid.
The two teams made a race of it for the 24 hours before the Ferrari took the win at 4.00pm on Sunday. It brings Ferrari’s total wins to 10 and the Maranello team get to keep the unique Centenary Trophy, specially commissioned for the 100th running of Le Mans.
