Why Ferrari can't win in F1, but it can win Le Mans. Plus, Robert Kubica praise

New York Times

4 hours ago

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Welcome back to Prime Tire, where I still don't know what Lando Norris was thinking in going left and not right against Oscar Piastri late in the Canadian Grand Prix.
But the other big story from Montreal concerned Ferrari. Specifically, team boss Fred Vasseur's reaction to critical reporting of La Scuderia in Italian media after Ferrari's poor performances so far this year. Then, its World Endurance Championship Hypercar won the 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours, and everyone started thinking the same thing…
I'm Alex, and Luke Smith will be along later, but first, we hear from one of our valued readers.
The F1 roots in Ferrari's Le Mans success
'I hope you are going to do a longer piece on this, but what's with Ferrari? If they can put together a winning program in WEC, etc…'
Well, to the anonymous but still cherished reader who replied with the above to our mailbag call out for questions last weekend, thank you for the query, and I hope I can do it justice in reply.
The answer is:
Not really, but it cannot be denied that the Ferrari 499P's third successive victory at Le Mans essentially all came down to the WEC's Balance of Performance technical rules.
These are intended to create performance parity between the eight manufacturers that compete for glory in the category's top class. This is the equivalent of the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class in the IMSA SportsCar Championship stateside.
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The Porsche Penske 963 car that finished second by only 14.1 seconds last Sunday had pretty much a perfect 24-hour race — as explained here on The Race's dedicated 2025 Le Mans podcast — and all three Ferraris that surrounded it hit issues. Many were self-inflicted.
That the 499P topped the speed traps on an 8.47-mile track with three massive straights, despite there being a dedicated Le Mans BOP to balance top speeds for each car above 155mph, played a big part in a Porsche defeat that should've been greater. The consensus from observers is that the Le Mans-specific BOP failed in 2025.
Ferrari has now won all four of 2025's WEC races to this point and dominates both the drivers' and manufacturers' standings. Oh, how Fred Vasseur's squad must envy such positions.
And Ferrari's F1 team came into 2025 on a high. After scoring its highest win total for six years last season, it had a little-known seven-time world champion named LEWIS HAMILTON onboard for the first time.
But its SF-25 car has been a clear step backwards, and although Ferrari is not far off second in the 2025 constructors' standings right now, it hasn't looked like doing a Mercedes and snatching a win off the McLarens/Max Verstappen battle at the front.
Here's why:
Vasseur also bizarrely claimed, 'It's not like this that we'll be able to win a championship… at least not with this kind of journalist around us.' Let me tell you, if journos have the reins of an F1 technical department that will make for absolutely spiffing headlines, but not good cars…
An upgrade for Ferrari's ride height issue is expected to be unleashed across the coming Austrian and British races. Mercedes has shown how, in Canada, with the field so close, even as McLaren dominates, it doesn't take much for a team's results to be transformed. No pressure then, Fred…
Now, and apologies to the TL;DR crowd, but here's why the Ferrari WEC car has proved to be so successful, even the quasi-privateer squad AF Corse could take overall Le Mans glory in 2025:
Here ends my TED Talk, but we're not leaving the sports car realm just yet.
What a day last Sunday was for Williams' 2019 F1 driver line-up. Not only did George Russell win the Canadian GP, but his teammate that year, Robert Kubica, led AF Corse's Le Mans triumph. That's no exaggeration — he completed 43% of his car's laps, 387 for a three-driver crew.
Kubica will need no introduction to seasoned motorsport fans, but just in case it's handy, here's his career summary.
Kubica's rally crash not only nearly killed him, but it also stopped him from completing a mooted Ferrari F1 deal to race alongside Fernando Alonso back in 2012. Dark days and many surgeries followed. His grit and perseverance deserve all the applause.
Congrats, Robert. Now here's what the F1 paddock had to say about his Le Mans win.
The last time I spoke to Robert Kubica was at the 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. He'd spent the season as Sauber's reserve driver, but was starting to dip his toe further into sports car racing, having made his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut that year in the LMP2 class.
He was somewhat noncommittal when discussing F1 (his main backer was heading to AlphaTauri), but when I started talking about sports cars, he lit up. The debate over the future of Le Mans and its chances of racing in the Hypercar category one day took up the majority of the interview. I even got a compliment (rare for racing drivers!) about how much he enjoyed the chat at the end.
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So, to see Kubica now an outright Le Mans victor, in a Ferrari, filled me with joy — and the rest of the F1 paddock too. Both before and after the race finished at 10 am in Montreal, people couldn't help but share their delight over the result. To this day, Kubica's determination and speed command such respect in the F1 world.
'I'm very happy for him,' said Fernando Alonso, himself a double Le Mans winner. 'We talked a few times about how special that race is, and he deserves to experience that. He's a legend of our sport. And now he is even more after winning Le Mans in his career. (After) some of the pain that he went through with the accident and things like that, I think, today is a very happy day for motorsport.'
Vasseur called Kubica 'extraterrestrial' for what he'd achieved at Le Mans.
'What he's doing is mega, and to win in Le Mans in this situation and to be the leader of the car, it's something that I can't imagine,' Vasseur added. 'I'm very pleased for Robert. He had a chaotic career in motorsport, and when you see the level of effort that he put into his career, I'm pleased for him to have this kind of result.'
Kubica may never have gotten the F1 career or success he deserved, but Sunday was a firm reminder of just how fondly he is thought of within our paddock.
🎲 Daniel Ricciardo's life outside F1 took an… interesting turn yesterday when it was announced he's done a deal with a betting company. The reaction from fans on his Instagram page was so bad that the eight-time grand prix winner had to limit comments. Grim.
🍿 Luke and Madeline Coleman reviewed 'F1: The Movie' ahead of its release next week. SPOILERS INCLUDED, SORRY, BUT I HAVE TO SHOUT THAT JUST IN CASE, YOU'RE WELCOME.
🏎 Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the 2005 United States Grand Prix, which featured six cars and beer being chucked towards eventual winner Michael Schumacher of Ferrari. How far F1 has come in the USA since that farcical day, which, for some baffling reason, isn't in F1's extended race highlights archive on YouTube…
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