Ferrari plays down ‘favourite’ tag for 24 Hours of Le Mans

Ferrari has downplayed the “favourite” tag it has been given by rival Hypercar teams ahead of this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

With Ferrari starting the 2025 World Endurance Championship with an unprecedented streak of three race wins across Qatar, Imola and Spa, the Prancing Horse was being considered the team to beat at Le Mans even before the paddock convened at Circuit de la Sarthe last weekend for the pre-race test.

With Ferrari topping the opening test session by nearly a second and finishing second and third later in the afternoon, only behind the pace-setting Toyota, the belief that it has an edge over the competition has only been cemented.

Ferrari has also been undefeated at Le Mans since it debuted the 499P LMH in 2023, with this year’s race providing the marque a chance to make it three wins in a row in the Hypercar category.

However, despite what rival teams say, Ferrari insists it is treating the 93rd edition of the French endurance classic no differently to before.

“It is clear that getting here with three wins in a row and the two latest editions of Le Mans makes us look like the team that has to be defeated,” said Antonello Coletta, Global Head of Ferrari Endurance.

But I can tell you that from the inside for us it's like Le Mans just like the others. We will try to do our best like always. We will give our 110 percent.

“Pressure is always with us because when you work at Ferrari, you are under pressure every single day. So each of us is accustomed to living with this pressure. 

“But it is this added strength that we have to transform all this in additional power, additional energy to achieve our results.

“Most importantly, more than pressure, it is the awareness of representing one of the most important brands in the world. A marque that broke some of the pages of its own history within the endurance context. 

“So on one hand there is the pride of the fact that we are doing well and on the other side there is the big responsibility that we should never lower our guard and we should keep doing our best not to get surprises when we get to the chequered flag.”

Although Ferrari scored back-to-back wins at Le Mans last year, it ended a distant third in the manufacturers' standings behind Toyota and Porsche, while Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen finished 41 points down on the drivers' title-winning #6 Porsche trio of Andre Lotterer, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor.

Coletta suggested that Ferrari’s main goal for 2025 is to clinch the overall WEC title rather than adding a 12th overall victory at Le Mans to its tally.

“Well by definition, Ferrari wants to win. We want to win the world championship and why not, we want to win Le Mans too,” he said.

“But as we said at the start of this season, this year we started with defined target that was to try to win the world championship - a championship that saw us being quite competitive last year in our view, but for one reason or another we were not able to gather what we could and despite trying being in the fight for the world championship until the very race we were not very consistent.

“This year, we started on the right track and this remains our primary aim. Here at Le Mans we are in a situation where competition is particularly important. We will try to do our best and we want to step up when there is the possibility to fight till the very last lap, as we did last year till the highest step of the podium.”