Today Ferrari AF Corse drivers Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi climbed to the top step of the podium at Le Mans, winners of the toughest 24-hour marathon, which celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, but were run for the 91st time.
The crew awards for the #51 Ferrari 499P hypercar were presented by Tom Christensen, who himself had climbed the podium nine times, earning him the prestigious nickname “Mr. Le Mans”.
The last time the factory team from Maranello won the most prestigious class on this circuit was 58 years ago.
Toyota drivers Sebastien Buemi, Brandon Hartley and Riko Hirakawa were on the second step of the podium, which of course did not bring them much joy, as they are used to victories. Together with his teammates in the factory team of the Japanese group, the Swiss won the 24 hours of Le Mans four times, Hartley three times and in 2017 together with Porsche.
For almost the entire race, despite all the adventures, the crew of the No. 8 Toyota kept a chance to win, but lost it in the blink of an eye after leaving the Hirakawa circuit, which happened less than two hours before the finish.
Third place went to Cadillac factory team drivers Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook, but they lost more than a lap to the leaders. However, this is Cadillac’s first podium at Le Mans, which is also quite a worthy result.
In the LMP2 class, a Europol Competition private team from Poland stood out, and this is the highest achievement in its history. It should be emphasized that the riders of team No. 34, and this is the Swiss Fabio Scherer, the Spaniard Albert Costa and their partner (part-time owner of this team) Jakub Smekhovsky, performed really well and showed excellent speed.
Prema Racing driver Robert Kubica, whose team took 2nd place in the LMP2 category, had to admit this.
Third in this class were the drivers of the French Duqueine team René Binder, Neil Jani and Nico Pino.
The factory Corvette Racing team came out on top in the LMGTE Am – its ninth and final win as there will be no category in the World Endurance Championship next year. Success this time was achieved by Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating and Nicholas Varrone, crew No. 33 riders.
The second among the sports cars crossed the finish line Aston Martin Vantage GTE of the ORT team, which has an exotic residence permit in the Sultanate of Oman, and one of its racers, Ahmad Al-Harty, represents this particular country. She and his teammates Michael Dinan and Charlie Eastwood occasionally led the way, but it wasn’t easy to resist the veteran American team.
Third in this class were British GR Racing team drivers Michael Wainwright, Benjamin Barker and Riccardo Pera, driving a Porsche 911 RSR-19. For the cars of the Stuttgart company, this is the only podium at the end of Le Mans 2023: today’s latest Porsche hypercars did not differ in speed, stability or reliability: in the top category of Le Mans, the best crew performed on the sports prototype of the 963rd model took only 9th place.
Admittedly, the sympathy of the majority of fans was on the side of the crew of the American team Hendrick Motorsports, who took part in a NASCAR car modified for endurance racing. A trio of Jenson Button, Mike Rockenfeller and Jimmie Johnson entered the marathon in the special Innovative Car category.
The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 turned out to be angry, fast and loud, and the drivers who drove it are unconditionally among the elite of world motorsport, so it is not surprising that they reached the finish line not only after having completed 285 laps around the Sarte ring driven , but also took 39th place in the overall standings among 62 starting teams.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
