This 2025 FIA WEC 24 Hours of Le Mans race report was compiled by regular endurance-racing correspondent and motorsport fundi, Dr Nick van der Meulen.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans, the jewel in the WEC crown, is the fourth round of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship. It is a festival of note, with cars driving through the town of Le Mans for scrutineering, meet and greet with the fans in town, before taking to the circuit. Free Practice 1 began on Wednesday afternoon, with qualifying towards Hyperpole occurring on Wednesday evening.

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Qualifying Pace

The Hyperpole format changed for this event, to spice up proceedings for the 300 000 strong crowd in attendance (tickets sold out barely 48 hours after going on sale last year). The top 15 Hypercars from qualifying would make it to the Hyperpole session (pole position shootout), while the top 12 from LMP2 and GTLM3, respectively, would vie for pole position honours in Hyperpole.

There were some surprises in qualifying. Toyota #7 (De Vries/Kobayashi/Conway) failed to make the cut for Hyperpole, while both Peugeots were left out as well. The Aston Martin Valkyries impressed, with #009 just failing to make it into Hyperpole, ousted from the top 15 with seconds remaining on the clock.

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Controversy Before the Start

Controversially, Penske Porsche #6 (Estre/L. Vanthoor/Campbell), which posted the fourth fastest time, was disqualified for being underweight and was forced to start the race from the back of the Hypercar grid. Cadillac sprung the surprise of the weekend, locking out the front row of the grid in Hyperpole. Alex Lynn (#12 Cadillac, shared with Stevens/Nato) took his maiden pole position, with factory teammates #38 (Bamber/Bourdais/Button) second fastest. Sadly for the American marque, it would be the highlight of their weekend.

Flying Ferraris

The race saw Ferrari and Porsche dominate proceedings. All three Ferraris ran in front, while only the #6 Porsche remained a factor. Kevin Estre scythed his way through the field at the start and was in a podium position after only two hours’ racing! There were mistakes and penalties aplenty, with most of the teams receiving a penalty at some stage in the race (most of them for pitlane speeding). This kept the #6 Porsche in the hunt.

Ferrari managed to win their third Le Mans 24 in succession, with three different cars. This time, it was the ‘privateer’ #83 AF Corse machine (Kubica/Ye/Hanson) taking the chequered flag first. Both of the works Ferraris had engine issues in the dying moments of the race and they hobbled to third (#51: Giovinazzi/Pier Guidi/Calado) and fourth place (#50: Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen), respectively.

In His Own Words

“What a great job from everyone,” Kubica enthused. “It hasn’t been completely smooth, but we deserve the win – we’ve been fast and strong and we only made a few mistakes. I wasn’t supposed to do five stints at the end, but I managed to control everything and bring the car safely home.

“I’m happy for Ferrari; to win three years in a row with three different crews and cars is amazing. Right now, it’s a mixture of tiredness and adrenaline and I’m just looking forward to resting a bit and enjoying it. It’s a very special day and it’s emotional, because we didn’t expect this.”

Porsche Challenge

This allowed Estre to snatch the runner-up finish ahead of Giovinazzi. The #51 drivers will wonder what could have been, after Pier Guidi spun into the gravel trap from the lead when making an emergency pitstop for fuel under Full Course Yellow. This cost them valuable time and dropped them behind the two sister cars at the time. Nevertheless, as this race scores double points, the result still stands them in good stead in the championship. This is Ferrari’s 12th victory at La Sarthe and they have won all four rounds this season thus far.

Porsche #5 (Andlauer/Chirstensen/Jaminet) had a strong start to the race, taking the lead on the first lap. Unfortunately, their strong run was peppered with penalties and tyre damage during the night and they faded to finish seventh. The third Penske Porsche #4 (Nasr/Tandy/Wehrlein) also managed to score points by finishing ninth.

Struggling for Pace

Toyota struggled in the 24-hour event. The #8 machine (Buemi/Hartley/Hirakawa) started well and systematically worked their way into the top five, even leading the race in the early hours of the morning. Unfortunately, they lost a wheel after a pitstop and had to crawl back to pitlane for repairs, putting them out of contention for a good finish. The sister car struggled close to the rear of the Hypercar field for a long time, before finally beginning to make headway in the second half of the race. Their persistence was rewarded with sixth place.

Failing to Deliver

Cadillac started from the font row, but their lead was short-lived. They were overwhelmed by Porsche and Ferrari at the start, but #12 ran solidly in the top ten throughout. Two of the American machines finished: #12 in fifth and #38 in eighth. Unfortunately, WTR #101 (R. Taylor/J. Taylor/Albuquerque) and Whelen #311 (Aitken/Drugovitch/Vesti) both retired.

BMW WRT struggled throughout the race, with the team struggling to break into the points-paying positions. Unfortunately, both cars ended up in the pit garage: #20 (Rast/S. van der Linde/Frijns) with engine-related issues and #15 (Marciello/D. Vanthoor/Magnussen) with battery overheating issues.

Rookie Season

Aston Martin have been steadily working on their machine’s reliability and the Valkyries did not disappoint. Valkyrie #009 (Riberas/Sorensen/De Angelis) had a smooth run to finish 13th, while sister #007 (Tincknell/Gamble/Gunn) had a couple of punctures to deal with early in the race. Despite this, they still finished the race, albeit in 15th place. The Valkyrie’s wail won over a legion of fans in Le Mans week.

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LMP2

The #43 Inter Europol (Smiechowski/Yelloly/Dillmann) Oreca LMP2 machine headed the class for almost half the race, with VDS Panis Racing #48 (Masson/Gray/Perera) in close attendance. These two machines were easily the class of the field. With less than 30 minutes remaining, #43 was slapped with a drive-through penalty for pitlane speeding.

This allowed #47 to lead, but it was short-lived. The #47 suffered a suspension issue, gifting #43 an opportunity to regain the lead and surge to victory – the second for Inter Europol. AO By TF #199 (Deletraz/Hyett/Cameron) finished a fine third and first in the Pro-Am subclass.

GT3LM

Manthey Porsche took victory again in the GT3LM class at Le Mans, this time with #92 (Hardwick/Pera/Lietz). They won comfortably ahead of AF Corse Ferrari #21 (Heriau/Mann/Rovera), while TF Sport #81 (van Rompuy/Andrade/Eastwood) completed the podium. Heart of Racing Aston Martin #27 (James/Drudi/Robichon) finished fourth after a long battle with Akkodis Lexus #78 (Robin/Hawksworth/Gehrsitz).

WRT BMW had a disastrous event, despite having run strongly. The #46 machine (Rossi/K. van der Linde/Al Harthy) ran at the front for almost half the race, but retired in the early hours of the morning due to an electrical issue. Teammates #31 (Farfus/Shahin/Boguslavskiy) hit a rabbit at high speed, bringing their race to a premature end.

Points Scored

The top ten finishers in each class score points. There are three points-scoring allocation forms, with different allocations for 6-hour, 8-10-hour and 24-hour events, respectively.

Pier Guidi/Calado/Giovinazzi maintain their Hypercar championship lead with 105 points, ahead of Hanson/Kubica/Ye with 89 and Fuoco/Nielsen/Molina with 81 points. Sheldon van der Linde has 27 points and lies 10th in the standings.

In the GT3LM class, Pera/Lietz/Hardwick lead with 81 points ahead of Rovera/Heriau/Mann with 76 points. Keating/Juncadella/Edgar (TF Sport Corvette #33) lies third with 60 points. Kelvin van der Linde lies 12th in the standings, with 21 points.

The fifth round of the World Endurance Championship takes place in Brazil, with the 6 Hours of Sao Paolo on 13 July 2025. The circuit is short, twisty and challenging and traffic will be a challenge to negotiate.

All images courtesy of FIAWEC/DPPI