Porsche doubts close 2025 Le Mans finish: ‘We were never in contention to win’

Porsche driver Kevin Estre says the close finish to the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans is not representative of his car’s pace, as he claims “we were never in contention to win”.

The No.6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 driven by Estre, Matt Campbell and Laurens Vanthoor started at the back of the Hypercar grid after it was thrown out of qualifying for a weight infringement.

A strong first stint saw Estre get the No.6 into the top 10 in the early stages of the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans on Saturday, while the sister No.5 car led.

The No.6 remained the only 963 in podium contention throughout, as a mix of strategy and penalties for the leading Ferraris kept the car in play.

Estre came into the final hour of the race running second between the race-winning No.83 AF Corse Ferrari and ahead of the No.51, and was just 14.048s adrift at the chequered flag.

But, speaking to the media - including Crash.net - on Sunday after the finish of the 93rd running of the event, Estre doubted what the results sheet read.

“In terms of performance, it looks close on the paper because they [Ferrari] did mistakes, but we were never really close,” he said.

“We were never in contention to win that race apart from maybe the first three hours, but as soon as they put the ‘second gear’ and went on the same strategy as us, we knew okay [they were] tripling [the stints on the tyres] and increasing the number of laps to 13 laps.

“Then we saw, OK, they have the pace, they have the degradation, they are quicker than us and from that moment on we thought, ‘OK, it's going to be very hard’, but we really didn't give up.

“I have to say I'm really, really proud of what we did today.

“I don't know how it is from the outside, but from the inside it felt great to be part of this team and really to give it all and be better than the others.”

Estre believes the hotter final hours of the race could have worked to Porsche’s advantage, but also admits it would be “strange” for Ferrari to had a massive drop late on.

“I think the result shows that it was probably our best chance, but we knew as well that…. I mean they [Ferrari] had so much the upper hand throughout the race that to lose all that pace in the last hour would be strange,” he added.

“So we knew we were going to be closer and we tried to push them into mistakes and we did the best strategy for us, which was only double [stint on tyres], not triple, no fuel saving.

“Full push, quali lap after quali lap, trying to maximise everything.

“That was the only chance and I'm glad we did that and actually we could separate them, which was not looking so good at the moment. But we didn't have enough really. I really tried.”

Porsche “had a little star” above No.6 in first hour

Estre’s rapid rise through the field in the very early stages of the race outshone his own expectations heading in, having admitted on Friday that being in the top 10 would be unlikely.

He says the car was performing well at that stage, but concedes there was a bit of luck involved too.

“It was a lot of fun actually,” he said.

“I don't know, I felt good. The car was feeling well, feeling good.

“Maybe I had a little star over the car which gave me every time the right momentum, took the right decision in traffic, when I had to go the right side and maybe some little magic sometimes happens in racing.”

The No.6 car’s runner-up spot at Le Mans marked its first podium of the 2025 World Endurance Championship, having struggled to get anywhere near in the first three rounds.

This has largely been down to the championship’s Balance of Performance regulations not working favourably for Porsche - something that hasn’t been the case at Le Mans, under the event’s isolated BoP.

Asked by Crash if this result is indicative of a more positive incoming step for the next races, he replied: “I don't know. We proved last year we are world champions.

“We proved last year that we had the pace, that we were consistent enough and that we had the team behind us to win the championship.

“This year has been a tough start for many reasons. We showed today that when it counts and when we have, let's say the numbers with us, we can fight with them.”