► Le Mans 2024 is here
► The state of play
► We speak to Ferrari’s James Calado
In a sequence of events that’d probably be thrown out of the script room for being too sentimental, Maranello’s 499P took a surprise win on its first attempt in 2023 – 50 years after Ferrari last competed in the top tier of endurance motorsport. So, will lightning strike twice?
It’ll be tricky. The 101st anniversary of the world’s most famous endurance race looks the most wide open it’s been in ages, with Ferrari, Porsche, Peugeot, Toyota and Cadillac all with a good chance of winning. And more competition means it’ll be even harder for Ferrari to recreate the fairytale story of last year’s win.
Ferrari isn’t confident about its chances – but it’s not unconfident either:
‘It’s more cars [this year]. And obviously the lap times are all much closer than they were last year,’ said James Calado, winner of last year’s race weighing up the possible challenges.
A Ferrari was on pole last year, but this year improved pace from Porsche, Toyota and well everyone else, means it’s starting third and won’t have the fastest car either. Qualifying isn’t too important at Le Mans – this isn’t Monaco after all – but it’s still a rough indicator of who could be fast.
‘I think we’re there or there abouts starting third and yes, it’s a long race,’ admits Calado. ‘In terms of performance, we’re not as quick as Porsche or Toyota, especially Toyota on the long runs; we’re quite far away.’
Rain is predicted at some point in the race (05:00 GMT tomorrow at the time of writing) and it’ll almost certainly play a role in who ends up on the top step. And that might be a good thing for the 499P drivers; ‘Our car seemed to be quite good in the rain. It was last year, so anything can happen, but pace alone we’re about third or fourth,’ he adds.
So who will win?
For the first time in a little while, nobody has an idea – though Calado believes Toyota have the best car. In terms of performance, we’re not as quick as Porsche or Toyota, especially Toyota on the long runs, we’re quite far away,’ he tells CAR.
And what about Stuttgart, which has six cars in this race; three works cars, two-Jota backed cars (one which could’ve one last year’s) and one Proton car with FAT sponsorship.
‘The Porsche I don’t know, because I’ve not followed them, but the Cadillac is really strong in the high-speed corners. Really good stability in the last sector, whereas they’re a little bit slow on the straights.
Toyota seems to be strong with the general overall speed that they’ve got. They’re the ones to look out for.’
Still, Colado is hopeful, and despite a ten second penalty there’s every chance the #51 car can repeat its 2023 victory – with a slightly less historic feel.
Porsche’s Nick Tandy was equally pragmatic about the race – and the pace of the teams in general: ‘I think by three hours in you’ll get some sort of idea of the hierarchy of pace, honestly not before then,’ he said.
‘So then so I think it will be very close. Very close. I think you will see six brands that will be fast – at some point.’
What’s the Ferrari #51 plan?
‘With the penalty we might need to be a bit aggressive in the start. I don’t know for sure because I’ve not spoken to the guys, but I imagine something like that – or it could be the opposite.’
‘We could just conserve and see what happens. It depends on the race because you know, there’s so many slow zones during the whole 24 hours. Safety cars which punch everyone back up again, and now they’re even doing four course yellows, so anything can happen.’
‘By the time the rain comes, when the first safety car comes, the race restarts,’ agrees Tandy. ‘We saw it last year already. The whole grid was totally mixed up within three hours. The Jota car which started from pit lane: they were leading the race after three hours.’
This year’s Le Mans race will start at 16:00 EST time (15:00 GMT) on the 15th June.