Credit: Ferrari

By the time you read this, the World Endurance Championship will be 100 races old. Once centered on the mega-expensive, mega-fast LMP1 hybrids, it's all about the Hypercars now. These are purpose-built, closed-top race cars, with some of the most complex hybrid systems you'll find outside of Formula 1, clad in bodywork that could give the Batmobile a run for its money. These Hypercars are designed to last the distance. During the 24 hours of Le Mans this year, the winning car covered 3,276 miles (5,273 km); for context, an F1 race is usually 190 miles (305 km), and at Monza this year, the race lasted little more than an hour. Here's another difference with F1: When it comes to endurance racing, Ferrari has been winning a lot.

In fact, it's taken victory at Le Mans for three years in a row, scoring a hat trick after 50 years away from this corner of the sport. This year has been even better: Ferrari leads the manufacturer's championship and the driver's championship with the #51 factory car. Its closest rival for the driver's title is another 83 Ferrari, this one entered as a privateer car by the AF Corsa team. When the invite arrived to join the team for its race at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to watch it in action and find out the key to that success.

"It has been an amazing challenge for us because after 50 years, it was not simple to restart in the pinnacle of motorsport," said Antonello Coletta, head of Ferrari's endurance racing program. Eighteen months after the car was greenlit, it was racing at Sebring in early 2023, a notoriously bumpy WWII bomber base in Florida that is as hard a test on a race car as any. Later that year, the 499P won Le Mans on its first try.

A turbocharged V6 powers the rear wheels, an electric motor kicks in at the front axle, but only above 100 mph (160 km/h).
Credit: Ferrari

What’s the secret?

"I think that we created a surprise in motorsport at the time, because Toyota was on [top of] the championship for many years and we arrived like a rookie, and we won the first Le Mans for us. Now we've won the first four races, including Le Mans in 2025 and think that this is the mirror of the maturity of our team," Coletta told me. "Our involvement on this this challenge has been concrete, and the maturity of our team, our drivers, is very, very important."

Form doesn't always quite follow function in racing. LMP1 died because it cost hundreds of millions of dollars to compete, so the Hypercar rules are designed to keep costs relatively sane. Once your car is designed, it gets homologated, and from then on, hardware changes are mostly limited to things that improve reliability but don't affect lap times.

Ferrari made a few small changes between the 2023 and 2024 seasons. "After Le Mans 24, now the rest of the car is exactly the same, but we involve many, many parts of the car where we can make a difference because the car is homolgated... But we work at a lot in terms of engine control, for example, in terms of setup, because we discover a lot of of new [things] in our car," Coletta told me, then pointed to his competitors' hardware changes as evidence that Ferrari got it right from the start.

Does the P stand for pretty?

The rules also hold back the worst impulses of the aerodynamicists. The ratio of lift to drag must be 4:1, with limits on absolute values. And that's freed up the stylists to create a visual link between their brand's sports prototype and the cars they make for road use.

The rear wing looks like it came from a superhero cartoon. (This is a compliment.)
Credit: Ferrari

I'm not sure anyone has capitalized on that styling freedom better than Ferrari. Other Hypercars have a bad angle or two—even the Aston Martin Valkyrie looks a little strange head- or tail-on. Not the 499P, which dazzles, whether it's painted Ferrari red or AF Corsa yellow. At the front, the nose calls out current road cars like the hybrid SF90 or 296. The rear is pure drama, with three vertical wing elements framing a thin strip of brake light that runs the width of the car. Behind that? Curves up top, shadowy venturis underneath.

It looks best when you see it on track and moving. As it does, it shows you different aspects of its shape, revealing curves you hadn't quite noticed before. Later, stationary in the garage with the bodywork off for servicing, the complex jumble of electronics and machinery looks like a steampunk nightmare. To me, at least—to the mechanics and engineers in red fire suits, it's just another day at work, with almost as many team members capturing content with cameras and sound recorders.

James Calado is one of the three drivers of the #51 Ferrari 499P, the car that leads the championship with one race to go. A veteran of single-seaters, including a stint at the Force India F1 team, he's no stranger to the workload demanded to drive the car at its limit.

"And this is very similar to Formula One now, to be honest, because you've got a lot of controls on the car—hybrid system, MGUs, lots of different things you need to manage during a lap or drawing a stint. Tire wear is a big thing. So we've got all these, let's say, wizardry tricks that we can use to to maximize the performance, but at the same time, you've got to understand it and give the feedback" Calado told me.

Two-way street

Giving Tifosi a reason to ring the church bells in Maranello each time the 499P wins a race is probably a good enough reason for the 499P program to exist, at a time when the F1 squad seems mired in problems. But endurance racing is also a great way to make better road cars.

"In effect, Ferrari is different over the rest of the brands that stay here, because we apply a lot of knowledge in the road cars in terms of aerodynamics, in terms of the engine experience, in terms of electronic and the hybrid system. In fact, the F80 is not completely derivated, but it takes a lot from our racing car, " Coletta told me.