Latest news with #enduranceRacing
Top Gear
a day ago
- Automotive
- Top Gear
Driving Porsche's 'alien': the raw, V8-powered road-going 963 RSP
Advertisement Video Porsche paints its Le Mans car, fills it with leather and licence plates and a cupholder, lets Top Gear loose in it 9 minutes 41 seconds "It looks utterly alien without logos interrupting the lines," said Top Gear's Ollie Marriage upon first acquaintance with Porsche's one-off, road-legal 963. Yes, 'road-legal 963'. Turns out the Germans do have a sense of humour, because here is its multiple title-winning endurance car, painted in silver, filled with leather and licence plates and let loose for the roads. Well, some roads. Advertisement - Page continues below It's even got a cup holder for goodness sake. What will owner Roger Penske encounter then, in this very special 963? We strap in and find out... READ MORE Porsche 963 RSP review: road legal Le Mans prototype driven! You might like Advertisement - Page continues below Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox. Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox.
Car and Driver
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Car and Driver
McLaren's New Le Mans Hypercar Offers Unprecedented Access
McLaren pulled back the covers on its new Le Mans Hypercar ahead of last weekend's 24 Hours of Le Mans. It will be built to the LMDh side of IMSA and WEC's Hypercar specifications with a Dallara chassis and will be powered by a twin-turbo V-6. McLaren also announced that a hand-picked group of customers will get to buy their own version of the hypercar as part of its Project: Endurance. Just ahead of last weekend's 24 Hours of Le Mans, McLaren pulled back the covers on its future endurance racer. Along with giving us our first look at the new hypercar, the automaker also announced that it will sell a small run of hypercars to a hand-picked group of customers, not unlike Ferrari does with the 499P and Aston Martin with the Valkyrie LM. McLaren On top of getting the chance to drive your very own race car, McLaren is also promising to bring the chosen customers through the testing and development of the car as part of what it calls Project: Endurance. The price is undisclosed, of course, but according to McLaren, it includes two years' worth of arrive-and-drive programs, complete with professional coaching, a pit crew, and race engineers at some of the best tracks around the world. In the world of car racing, the Triple Crown of Motorsports refers to winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Indianapolis 500, and the Monaco Grand Prix. To this day, McLaren is the only manufacturer to have done it. With Project: Endurance, McLaren aims to win all three within a single season. McLaren So what's the deal with the car itself? Well, building a race car is, as you might have guessed, immensely expensive. But in the top-flight Hypercar classes of IMSA and WEC, manufacturers are given the option between LMH and LMDh specifications. The former, which is the route Aston Martin, Ferrari, Toyota, and Peugeot have taken, allows for a bespoke car but costs more money. The latter, which the rest of the WEC field selected, uses off-the-shelf parts, including the chassis, and helps to significantly bring down costs. McLaren McLaren opted to go for an LMDh car and selected Dallara, the same company that builds chassis for IndyCar, to build its chassis. It will partner with United Autosports, which is partly owned by McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, to field the cars in 2027. Full details on the car are light, but the automaker confirmed that it will be powered by a twin-turbocharged V-6, which will be capped at 671 horsepower by regulations. One downside of going the LMDh route is the restriction on design. By choosing a chassis manufacturer, you're signing up for their base template. McLaren was able to alter the body panels, but the result is—let's say discombobulated at best. Still, owning an ugly hypercar sounds better than owning no hypercar. Jack Fitzgerald Associate News Editor Jack Fitzgerald's love for cars stems from his as yet unshakable addiction to Formula 1. After a brief stint as a detailer for a local dealership group in college, he knew he needed a more permanent way to drive all the new cars he couldn't afford and decided to pursue a career in auto writing. By hounding his college professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he was able to travel Wisconsin seeking out stories in the auto world before landing his dream job at Car and Driver. His new goal is to delay the inevitable demise of his 2010 Volkswagen Golf. Read full bio
Top Gear
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Top Gear
Privateer Ferrari wins Le Mans 24 Hours for historic three-peat
Motorsport Prancing Horse's dominance continues, as Robert Kubica completes astonishing redemption story Skip 10 photos in the image carousel and continue reading Ferrari took victory at this weekend's 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans, securing an historic three-peat that will be remembered for decades to come. The #51 Ferrari 499P won the French endurance race's centenary event in 2023 – the first Le Mans of the Hypercar era – and its #50 sister car took victory last year: in 2025 it was the turn of the AF Corse team's identical #83, making it the first outright privateer win at Le Mans since 2005. Advertisement - Page continues below Along with the third different Ferrari to win in as many years, it was the third different driver line-up: Robert Kubica took the chequered flag to become the first Polish winner, and teammate Yifei Ye is the first Chinese winner. For Phil Hanson, he is the 35th British winner and it's his second taste of victory at La Sarthe following an LMP2 class win in 2020. He's also the third-ever Brit to win for Ferrari, after James Calado (2023) and Lord Selsdon, who co-drove a 166M to Ferrari's first Le Mans win in 1949. You might like For Kubica and Ye, the victory was all the sweeter due to past hardships. The Pole had signed to race for the Ferrari Formula 1 team in 2012, but his devastating rally crash in 2011 ended those hopes. Racing together at Le Mans in 2021, the pair suffered heartbreak when a last-lap electrical failure robbed them of an LMP2 class victory. Ye, too, also crashed heavily at Le Mans in 2023 when leading in a privateer Porsche 963 . 'The emotions haven't really hit yet,' Hanson told Top Gear after the race. 'It's just relief – it'll take a little bit of time to process what happened. The last hour was the longest of my life, and the last minutes were horrible. My teammates, when I raced against them in LMP2, they DNF'd on the final lap so I know what Le Mans can do. I wasn't taking anything for granted.' Advertisement - Page continues below The top-tier category at the world's most famous endurance race is arguably at an all-time high, surpassing even the Group C era, with Alpine, Aston Martin, BMW, Cadillac, Peugeot, Porsche and Toyota all competing. Yet this was arguably Ferrari's most comfortable win of the three, a victory seemingly never in doubt after the first hour. This first half of 2025's World Endurance Championship had already provided an ominous sign: Ferrari had won all three races prior to this one, despite struggling away from WEC's headline race in 2023 and 2024. And while the FIA's Balance of Performance (BOP) rules that attempt to keep the racing close are unique to Le Mans, this year's WEC dominance and two previous Le Mans wins meant the smart money was on a Ferrari victory. READ MORE Robert Kubica in rally crash Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox. Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox. Still, there were hopes after qualifying that the race would be wide open, with Cadillac securing the front row, and Porsche and BMW each having two cars ahead of the fastest #50 Ferrari in seventh. The second factory Ferrari started 11th and the AF Corse car in 13th. However, rumours swirled in the paddock that Ferrari might have been sandbagging, and the Caddy drivers openly talked down both their speed on the straights and a chance of victory. That proved to be true as the two leading Porsche Penske 963s quickly picked off the American V-Series.R machines, while the #6 Porsche (starting from the back of the Hypercar class after being disqualified from qualifying for being underweight) stormed up to fifth in the first hour in the hands of Kevin Estre. The Ferraris then hauled in the Cadillacs, and gradually the Porsches, to the point that five hours in the #50 was leading a 1-2-3 – but the #6 Porsche stayed in touch. There was hope around of closer racing through the night, after the #50 and #51 picked up a string of penalties, leaving the #83 as the only Ferrari in the top five. The sole safety car also mixed up the order somewhat, but with no further interruptions and no rain throughout the race, all three Ferraris were back in front with 18 hours to go. A race is never over until it's over though. When Top Gear popped into the Ferrari pit garage on Sunday morning to witness the leading #51 stop for fuel, tyres and a driver change, all was quiet and calm. But on the way to its next stop a dozen or so laps later, Alessandro Pier Guidi spun on his entry into the pit lane. He managed to crawl out of the gravel, but the time lost saw his car drop to third. Yifei Ye, at the wheel of the privateer #83 Ferrari 499P took the lead, before handing over to Kubica for a marathon three-and-a-half-hour stint, all with his driver-cooling system malfunctioning. The chasing #6 Porsche got close but never cut the lead into single-digit seconds. It was a heroic comeback for the #6, which held off the other Ferraris to finish second. With 65 minutes to go, the factory Ferraris divulged over team radio that victory was out of reach, and while they swapped positions multiple times to try and overhaul the Porsche ahead, first the #51 and then the #50 succumbed to problems that slowed their pace and left Estre in the Porsche to nail out a succession of qualifying laps to close down the privateer Ferrari. Ultimately the #51 Ferrari rounded out the podium. The win was Ferrari's 12th outright at Le Mans, and the three-peat will doubtless be remembered in Ferrari folklore on a level with its first victory in 1949, and its six straight between 1960 and 1965. Before the race, Alessandro Pier Guidi from the #51 was asked if three wins on the bounce in WEC, and two previous Le Mans victories, meant there was extra pressure on Ferrari going into this year's 24 Hours. 'To be honest, no,' he laughed. 'The pressure is on the guys that have never won anything.' Three Le Mans races into the Hypercar era, that remains poignantly true for the other manufacturers.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Ferrari wins the 24 Hours of Le Mans for third year in a row
AF Corse car (starting no. 83) a Ferrari 499P with Robert Kubica of Poland, Yifei Ye of China and Phil Hanson of Great Britain races during the 24-hour Le Mans endurance race, Sunday June 15, 2025 in Le Mans, western France. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez) LE MANS, France (AP) — 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. Advertisement 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. 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. ___ AP auto racing:
CNA
5 days ago
- Automotive
- CNA
Ferrari heading for a hat-trick at Le Mans
Defending champions Ferrari were heading for a third straight win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, after leading the 93rd edition of the race through the night and into Sunday morning at the Sarthe circuit. With six hours remaining, the number 51 factory 499P car of 2023 winners Alessandro Pier Guidi, Antonio Giovinazzi and James Calado led the number 83 AF Corse entry of Robert Kubica, Yifei Yi and Philip Hanson by some six seconds. The number 50 factory car crewed by last year's winners Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina completed the lockout of the podium places. Porsche Penske's number six hypercar, which had led at the halfway stage after a safety car period, was fourth and Toyota's number eight car fifth. With six hours being the regular length of a World Endurance Championship race, and temperatures rising, there was however still plenty of room for late drama. The number 51 Ferrari had already fought back from eighth place after a puncture, a five second penalty and 20 second stop and go punishment to retake the lead by dawn. Swiss tennis great Roger Federer had waved the French flag to get the race underway on Saturday afternoon, with Porsche immediately seizing the lead from pole-sitters Cadillac. Cadillac had swept the front row in Thursday's qualifying but any advantage was short-lived as Porsche Penske's Julien Andlauer slipstreamed into the lead from third on the grid before the first chicane on the opening lap. "We're trying to hang in there, but it's tough out on track to be honest," said Sebastien Bourdais, who shares the number 38 Cadillac with 2009 Formula One champion Jenson Button and was in ninth place. "We're struggling with tyre degradation. And we're struggling with the balance." Ferrari worked their way to the front and Fuoco took the lead in the third hour on the run from Mulsanne to Indianapolis with the three Ferraris running 1-2-3 at the quarter distance. The BMW driven by Italy's MotoGP great Valentino Rossi had to retire in the LMGT3 category. The race at the circuit in north-west France features 62 cars shared by 186 drivers from 34 countries, and is the fourth round of the World Endurance Championship, with 21 hypercars in the battle for overall victory. Organisers have put the total weekend attendance at more than 300,000 spectators. Ferrari will be able to keep the trophy at their Maranello factory if the works team completes a hat-trick on Sunday.
