How Ferrari won Le Mans: the clever tactic that helped break Toyota in 2023

It was a sombre Hirakawa who joined the post-race press conference, contemplating the error that cost Toyota the race. But, as his team-mates quickly said. The WEC champion, who won Le Mans last year, shouldn’t shoulder all the blame.

The train of events that led to his crash was set in play hours before he got into the car by a few laps of ingenious Ferrari teamwork that opened the gap to Toyota. Without that, Hirakawa may have never been given the fateful instruction.

The race had always looked close: five teams took the lead in the highly-charged opening hours with changeable weather and a string of crashes, from frontrunners to several lower down the grid.

Overnight, the race did settle down and a battle for the lead emerged between the No51 Ferrari and No8 Toyota. Each had lost a team-mate from the fight: the other Toyota was out of the race after being rear-ended, and the No50 Ferrari lost 20min when a stone holed its radiator.

Intense battle for the lead

As night turned to day, the battle raged on, with the gap typically measured in seconds and the slightest hiccup proving significant: Toyota’s 14sec lead evaporated after an unfortunate squirrel damaged the nose.

“We were properly on the limit,” said Ferrari’s James Calado. “There was nothing spare there. We were pushing as hard as we could. At that time, both cars were very, very similar in terms of pace.”

Ferrari was ahead by around a minute on lap 255 when the No51 car pitted, followed by the Toyota. It was a straightforward stop, until the car stayed stationary. The complex systems in the cockpit weren’t communicating with each other properly and a full reset was needed.

Its lead turned into a 6sec deficit, but driver Alessandro Pier Guidi came back three laps later, passing Toyota’s Sébastien Buemi on the Mulsanne Straight.

But this time, the Ferrari couldn’t pull such a gap. Two sets of pitstops later, on lap 279 and the leaders were separated by just 1.4sec; Toyota’s Brendon Hartley breathing down Calado’s neck, in a car that was only getting faster.

“We went for it,” said Hartley. “We really did our maximum but we did lack some pace. But at the end of the race, when the track temperature got hotter, our car seemed to come alive a bit. We were able to put them under a bit of pressure. And for a moment then it was getting exciting.”

Ferrari deploys its lapped car

Looming in the background, however, was the second Ferrari: six laps down, it had been out of the picture, but would now play a critical role in the outcome thanks to its pace, which was similar to the leaders.

Ahead of the race, Ferrari had pinned its hopes of victory into forcing Toyota — the dominant car so far this season — into an error. “If we can put pressure to them, it’s a long race,” said No51 co-driver Antonio Giovinazzi after qualifying. “If they make a mistake and we can use that to be in front of them.”

The plan swung into action. By lap 281, Miguel Molina in the No50 car was breathing down the neck of Hartley, looking to — entirely legitimately — take back a lap.

Hartley was less than keen to see another Ferrari between him and the leader, and defended the track position.

As the two squabbled, Calado stretched his lead to 5.2sec by lap 282 in a single lap, and it was above 6sec by the time the No50 car pitted on lap 286.

With 3hr 30min to go, the thread had been broken, just as Toyota had looked threatening with an apparent tyre advantage. From that moment on, Ferrari’s lead rarely dropped below 10sec.

“Tyre strategy changed lap after lap, stint after stint,” said Antonello Coletta, Ferrari’s head of endurance racing. “The battle with Toyota has been very hard. We had the second car near the Toyota and it is normal that we put pressure on our competitors.”

“It was one of the chances to put pressure on Toyota,” said Giovinazzi “[To try and] make them do a mistake. In the end, they did it. And it was key. We did it like a team.”

Toyota tries too hard

With the gap more comfortable for Ferrari, but still measured in seconds, Hirakawa replaced Hartley with just under two hours to go and received his instructions “He was told to go full risk,” said Hartley. “Give it all. That’s what he did”

Once on track, there was a further radio message to Hirakawa: “The gap is 16sec, let’s hunt them down”. Seven minutes later, Hirakawa hit the barriers at Indianapolis and limped back to the pits, emerging 3min 22sec down.

The pressure off, Ferrari eased its lap times by 5sec and Pier Guidi simply had to bring the car home, until the final heart-stopping moment for the team. The error he’d experienced five hours previously reared its head again with 24min to go. After 30sec of panic as he reset the systems, the car was back in action, the glitch unpunished thanks to the large lead.

No wonder a smile crept across Coletta’s face after the race when we asked about using the lapped car to pressure the Toyota.