Ferrari in control with Porsche best of the rest

Ferrari was in control of the 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours as the race reached one-quarter distance, with its trio of 499P LMHs enjoying a net top-three lockout.

Cadillac driver Sebastien Bourdais’ pre-race frustration surrounding Ferrari’s pace proved correct in the opening six hours of the race as the Prancing Horse machines worked their way to the front.

The #50 499P was leading at the time the clock ticked on to six hours, from the #83 customer car but this was by virtue of the #51 having recently pitted for an eighth time.

The Jota Cadillac V-Series.R LMDhs locked out the front row but their advantage didn’t even last a lap as the #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 LMDh of Julien Andlauer was into top spot by the first Mulsanne chicane.

The Cadillacs began to plummet down the order in the second hour with the #50 Ferrari moving into second spot.

But the car on a charge was the #6 Porsche of Kevin Estre, which had been disqualified from qualifying for being underweight and therefore started at the back of the 21-strong Hypercar field. 

Yet Estre had already climbed to third place by the end of the second hour after a charging drive and became the closest challenger to the #50 Ferrari, which blasted into the lead when Antonio Fuoco usurped Mathieu Jaminet in the #5 Porsche on the run between Mulsanne Corner and Indianapolis.

Jaminet was then baulked by an LMGT3 Ferrari through the Porsche Curves and the #6 Porsche swept into second.

Things soon turned sour for the #5 crew when they were handed a drive-through penalty for failing to obey the slow zone procedure, which dropped it back to the lower reaches of the top 10.

Instead, the #51 and #83 Ferraris were on the move with them making it a 1-2-3 inside the fifth hour.

Robert Kubica in the customer #83 car had moved into second but a five-second penalty for going off track when passing the #5 Porsche at the first Mulsanne Chicane put the #51 back ahead.

The #6 Porsche remained the best non-Ferrari at the six-hour mark, but was nearly 30 seconds adrift of the lead.

BMW had enjoyed a strong first portion of the race to run in a net fifth and sixth at one-quarter’s distance, although its pair of M Hybrid V8 LMDhs had just stopped so were officially seventh and 10th.

The best of the Toyota GR010 LMHs, the #8 crew, was in fourth (but a net seventh) at the six-hour mark.

The third PPM Porsche, the #4, was in sixth, while the best of the Cadillacs was now down in eighth. 

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

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

The first of the Peugeot 9X8s was in an unrepresentative ninth, it adopting a vastly different pitstop strategy to the remaining Hypercar contenders. 

But the sister #93 machine endured more misery when Paul di Resta was caught out by an LMGT3 Ferrari through the Porsche Curves in the first hour and went off into the barriers, and had to pit for repairs. 

That car therefore, occupies 21st and last spot among the Hypercar contenders, one lap down.

The Alpine A424 LMDhs were 11th and 13th with both crews having to serve penalties for speeding in the pitlane, while both Aston Martin Valkyries were a lap down. 

The #48 VDS Panis Racing ORECA-Gibson 07 led the way in the LMP2 division after six hours, although it was the #43 Inter Europol entry that had led for much of the distance.

It had grabbed the lead when bronze-graded Rodrigo Sales climbed aboard the polesitting #29 TDS entry at the first stops.

However, the Inter Europol crew was hampered by Nick Yelloly pulling into the wrong pitbox in the fifth hour, losing around a minute in the process, while it also had to stop on consecutive laps either side of a brief full-course yellow, resulting in it falling to fourth.

The #199 AO by TF car occupied second place at one-quarter distance, while the #9 Iron Lynx-Proton crew was third.

#48 VDS Panis Racing Oreca 07 – Gibson: Oliver Gray, Esteban Masson, Franck Perera

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

The #46 WRT BMW M4 led the way in LMGT3 after six hours, although the advantage regularly swung between it, the #21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 and the #92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R, depending upon which of the bronzes were at the wheel, the crews adopting alternate strategies.

The pole-sitting #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage dropped down the order after the first round of stops but the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston entry was among the lead contenders until it lost 13 minutes in the pits in the third hour to rectify an engine system issue.

The #88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang was the sole official retirement after six hours, Giammarco Levorato having crashed at Tertre Rouge early in the fourth hour.

However, the #95 United Autosports McLaren 720S had stopped on the Mulsanne Straight during hour six and had been unable to get going.