Ferrari has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the third year in a row. Former Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica was one of the drivers. He is the first Pole to win the prestigious French race.
Kubica played a major role in the victory with an impressive performance, in a Ferrari that he shared with the Chinese Yifei Ye and the Briton Philip Hanson. They beat the Porsche of Kevin Estre, Matt Campbell and Laurens Vanthoor. The Ferrari of Antonio Giovinazzi, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado finished third after 24 hours.
Kubica’s victory is extra special, because he has had a less functioning right arm since a crash with a rally car in 2011. That accident cost the single Grand Prix winner a promising Formula 1 career, precisely at Ferrari. Later he fought his way back to the premier class.
Kubica and his teammates won remarkably with a car that is not registered by Ferrari. It was a private entry from AF Corse, the Italian racing team that also runs Ferrari’s factory cars. So it was the third victory in a row for the sports car manufacturer in Le Mans, but not from the factory team. The winner was also clearly distinguishable: the car is yellow instead of the familiar Ferrari red.
The factory Ferraris went into the race as favorites, but made too many mistakes. This edition of Le Mans passed without many major incidents, with, for example, exceptionally only one safety car situation and without rain. As a result, it became a 24-hour sprint in which almost full speed was driven continuously.
It came down to small mistakes and incidents that resulted in penalties, in which the Ferrari team of Kubica was the least involved. That also offered the Porsche with starting number 6 the opportunity to compete for the podium places.
The German manufacturer was not considered one of the favorites in advance. The Porsche even started last in the 21-car Hypercar field, but mainly thanks to the French top driver Estre, the car worked its way forward. After Estre had already worked his way past the two factory Ferraris, those cars also had minor technical problems. That ended the exciting battle for the podium places a little less than an hour before the finish.
There was more to celebrate for Poland. Inter Europol Competition won in the LMP2 class, a Polish team with Polish driver Jakub Schiechowski behind the wheel. He shared the car with Frenchman Tom Dillmann and Briton Nick Yelloly. In the GT class, the victory went to the Porsche of the German Manthey, with multiple Richard Lietz from Austria, the American Ryan Hardwick and the Italian Riccardo Perra as drivers.