Ferrari won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the third year running Sunday but a late surge from Porsche Penske Motorsport denied the Italian manufacturer a podium sweep.
The No. 83 Ferrari 499P crew of Robert Kubica, Ye Yifei and Philip Hanson took the win as Ferrari won for the 12th time in the 102nd edition of the storied race. Their bright-yellow car, privately entered by the AF Corse team, got the better of Porsche and the two official factory-entered Ferraris.
Kubica took the checkered flag after a marathon spell at the wheel Sunday afternoon to make sure of the win.
“It has been a long 24 hours,” Kubica said to his team over the radio and thanked them in Italian. “Enjoy.”
The Penske-operated No. 6 Porsche 963 of Kévin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell surged late in the race to finish second ahead of the two other Ferraris, 14 seconds behind the winner.
For Kubica and Ye, it was redemption after their car — then with Robert Shwartzman as third driver — was a strong contender to win last year's race before a crash, a penalty and finally a race-ending mechanical failure.
It’s a career highlight for 40-year-old Polish driver Kubica, whose promising Formula 1 career was interrupted in 2011 when a crash while competing in a rally left him with severe injuries.
Kubica is the first driver from Poland to win Le Mans outright, and Ye is the first from China to achieve that feat.
“It’s a great story that we finally put a perfect ending with Robert,” Ye told broadcasters. “It looks easier from the outside than it is in the car. It’s just unbelievable.”
Ferrari was off the pace in qualifying, with the two factory cars 7th and 11th on the grid and the eventual winner 13th. But once tennis great Roger Federer waved the starting flag Saturday, Ferrari’s pace over long race runs soon became clear.
After a close fight with Toyota in last year’s race, this time Ferrari often seemed in near-total control. Early Sunday morning, it was on target for the first top-class podium sweep by one manufacturer since 2012.
Ferrari didn’t have it all its own way in the final hours, though.
Alessandro Pier Guidi spun in the No. 51 car on his way into the pits, losing the lead, while the resurgent No. 6 Porsche piled on the pressure.
Le Mans is as much a test of drivers’ resilience as it is the cars’ reliability. Both held up well in an unusually calm race that avoided much of the usual nighttime drama with few significant crashes and just one safety-car period.
Polish team Inter Europol Competition won the LMP2 class and Manthey won the GT3 class in a Porsche 911.
