Le Mans preview and Ferrari’s F1 woes

The Monaco GP, Indianapolis 500 and Le Mans 24 Hours. It’s that ridiculous time of year when the three biggest racing events in the world take place close together and all three feature in this month’s Autosport magazine, out today (5 June).

Despite its struggles in Formula 1, which Jake Boxall-Legge explores in this issue, Ferrari heads to Le Mans as a reluctant favourite. It has to, given its tally of three out of three from the 2025 World Endurance Championship rounds so far and the fact that the 499P has yet to be beaten around the high-speed Circuit de la Sarthe.

Gary Watkins is your guide in our Le Mans preview, which runs through all the major Hypercar players, talks to the class-winning Brits now gunning for overall success, hears from Wayne Taylor Racing about how it is preparing for its first Le Mans, and picks out the key storylines to look out for. We also have our first sportscar ‘Now that was a car’ focus, on the legendary Audi R8.

It’s somewhat ironic that, following several weekends during which he made small mistakes that proved costly, Lando Norris nailed things at the circuit that punishes errors more than anywhere else on the F1 calendar. The two-stop rule certainly made for a different Monte Carlo contest, but further work is required to make it a little less random. We’ve got special debriefs on both the Monaco GP and the Indy 500, which current IndyCar dominator Alex Palou added to his CV to underline his status as a modern legend of American motorsport.

Who will be running the sport in the years to come is also a current topic of debate, so Stuart Codling looks at the murky world of the FIA presidential election, while we also study the rise of Andrea Kimi Antonelli and watch Jean Alesi get reunited with his favourite F1 car.

While Norris and Ferrari’s James Calado remain very much in contention for their world crowns, another Briton currently leads the way in his discipline. Elfyn Evans has been close to World Rally Championship success before and the 2025 season has been the Welshman’s best start to a title tilt so far. Tom Howard speaks to him and his Toyota engineer about what’s changed – and what’s stayed the same – in this month’s rallying feature.

The UK motorsport season is now fully under way and our first 2025 edition of the Autosport National Rankings shows who’s been banging in the wins early in the campaign. Sadly, the deaths of rally co-driver Dai Roberts and historic racer Julian Grimwade on the same day marred the month of May and reminded everyone that motorsport can still be dangerous – and that safety must remain a priority.

Elsewhere in the National section, Knockhill celebrates 50 years of car racing, we speak to the driver of a rather unusual Lancia and pick out some recent UK motorsport highlights.

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