How “a crazy story” led to Le Mans glory for Hanson

Phil Hanson calls it “the best mistake I ever made”.

He’s talking about the decision to begin his car racing career in the world of endurance rather than stepping onto the single-seater ladder. Nine years later he’s celebrating an overall Le Mans 24 Hours victory at the wheel of a Ferrari. He’s about right when he calls it “a crazy story”. 

Crazy because Hanson was a race winner and champion at international level in LMP3 in the Asian Le Mans Series within a year of his first race. And a driver, who at 25 has become the second youngest Brit to win the French enduro, sharing AF Corse’s satellite Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar with Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye, kept on winning in LMP2.

European Le Mans Series and World Endurance Championship titles quickly followed, as well as another in Asia. His tally of successes in the junior prototype ranks included a first Le Mans victory in class, again as the second youngest from Britain to do so, back in 2020. 

And also a little bit crazy because his unconventional route to the top of sportscar racing was kind of chosen for him. Hanson was eased in the direction of sportscars at the behest of Tockwith Motorsports, a team he’d linked up with after a short but successful karting career.

“It was pure dumb luck, because looking back it might have been a mistake for my development,” said Hanson, who started out aged 16 with a title-winning campaign in the Britcar Endurance Championship aboard an Audi R8 LMS GT3. 

“But I found myself in endurance racing and was able to build experience. I’m now 25 and have done Le Mans nine times and have two wins. How I got into it really was a strange turn of events.”

The unlikely tale started courtesy of the BKC Racing team with which Hanson won the Super One X30 junior British karting title in 2015: it had links with Tockwith via another of its alumni. The strange story continued after Hanson split with the Yorkshire-based squad following his first Le Mans start in 2017 – Tockwith had gained a P2 entry for the race following the championship success in Asia over the preceding winter.

Hanson and Nigel Moore, part of the family that runs Tockwith, had won the 2016-17 Asian LMS P3 title driving a Ligier-Nissan JSP3 and then raced the French constructor’s JSP2 LMP2 in the ELMS and at Le Mans. It was while pondering the next step after parting company with Tockwith following one more race post-Le Mans that Hanson was invited by Ligier to take part in some development testing.

“My dad sat down with Jacques [Nicolet, owner of the Ligier marque] and was told they were developing a new diff for the P2 car,” recalled Hanson. “They struck a deal whereby I could go and do some development stuff with them at Magny-Cours and Aragon.”

It was an important moment in Hanson’s journey.

“Before, there had been little glimmers, but I wasn’t sure that I had properly adapted to car racing,” he said. “At the test at Magny-Cours everything clicked. The balance of the car was great and I remember being on cloud nine. 

“Filipe [Albuquerque] was Ligier’s development driver and I remember being up on his time on the run I got on fresh tyres. I was thinking, this is so easy, look at me now – and then spun at one of the hairpins!”

Hanson’s move to United Autosports for the next stage of his endurance racing education was a direct result of that test. Albuquerque, with whom he would take the 2019-20 WEC P2 title and class honours at Le Mans, was already on the books of the Anglo-American team. Back in 2017, United was firmly in the Ligier camp – as well as running its P2 and P3 contender, it was a British importer for the marque. 

#22 United Autosports – Oreca 07 – Gibson: Philip Hanson, Filipe Albuquerque, Paul Di Resta

Photo by: Paul Foster

A campaign in the ELMS plus start number two at Le Mans kicked off a six-year association with United, coincidentally also based in Yorkshire. The successes started in year one with a pair of victories in the European series with Hanson as the silver-rated driver alongside Albuquerque. A second Asian title followed in the winter, sharing with Paul di Resta who had completed the line-up at Le Mans 2018. A switch to the ORECA 07 ahead of the start of the 2019-20 WEC yielded WEC and Le Mans silverware. 

Hanson credited a disappointing season in 2022, his second campaign after he was moved up to gold status, in the WEC and ELMS as a turning point in his career.

“A bit of a nightmare” is how he described that year. “We really struggled with the new regulations for the cars.”

“It may have looked like the step came in 2023,” he said of a season in which he took three race wins in the ELMS and one in the WEC en route to second and third in the respective championships. “Typically the step doesn’t come when you are getting the results. You take the step when things aren’t going your way.”

The ambition for Hanson to move up to the top class of the WEC was hatched after his 2020 triumph at Le Mans. His thought was “I’ve won in class so the goal now has to be to win it overall”, though he points out that P2 was more competitive than the top class back then – there were just five LMP1 cars that year. 

The 2023 season opened the door to Hypercar ranks to which he graduated last year in one of the British Jota team’s customer Porsche 963 LMDsh. He contested the WEC in conjunction with a programme in the JDC-Miller MotorSports team’s 963 in the five endurance rounds of the IMSA SportsCar Championship in North America. 

#38 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963: Jenson Button, Philip Hanson, Oliver Rasmussen

Photo by: Andreas Beil

“I was fortunate because Jota was still running one car in LMP2 in ’23 [alongside its first 963],” explained Hanson. “The conversations started quite early on in a year I was performing strongly in P2.”

What Hanson is saying is that Jota, who approached him, had a handle on what he was achieving in the last year for P2 as a full-time class in the WEC.  

A full season in Hypercar in ’24 alongside Jenson Button and Oliver Rasmussen in the second Jota entry allowed Hanson “to show what I could do” at the highest level. He made his mark, in particular, at Le Mans on the way to ninth and was among the quickest Porsche drivers: his fastest race lap was only bested by Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor in the fourth-placed Penske factory car, while on average race pace he was right there.

“That made me very attractive for other teams,” said Hanson. 

A switch to Ferrari’s so-called customer entry followed on Jota’s ascent to factory status with Cadillac and an influx of factory drivers from the General Motors brand. It has resulted in a second one-year deal in a row for Hanson and the goal now is to lay down some roots in Hypercar. 

“What I am looking for in my career now is a longer-term deal,” said Hanson, who wants to achieve the holy grail of full-factory driver status. “We are having conversations with a few teams, but I am not sure where I want to be. The Ferrari is obviously an incredibly competitive car. I’m not leaving any options off the table.”

#83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye, Philip Hanson

Photo by: Emanuele Clivati | AG Photo

In the shorter term, there’s also the not so little matter of the 2025 WEC title. Victory at Le Mans has propelled Hanson, Kubica and Ye into contention for the crown that Ferrari so covets. They now lie 16 points behind the drivers of the #51 factory 499P, James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi at the top. 

But more immediately there’s another priority for Hanson. To celebrate a Le Mans victory properly. Back in 2020 he didn’t get the chance. That was the year Le Mans was delayed until September as a result of the COVID pandemic, which meant masks on the podium and no chance to paint the town red on his arrival back home.

“Right now the priority in the short term is to enjoy the win and in the slighter longer term to focus on the championship and trying to win it,” Hanson concluded.

“Medium term the goal is to try to position myself in the best situation to be able replicate that with commitment from a manufacturer.”

Or to put it another way, for the Phil Hanson story to become a little less crazy.