Ferrari AF Corse scored a third win in three races to start the 2025 FIA WEC season, with the No. 51 499P leading a 1-2 finish for the Italian factory cars in a thrilling 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps Saturday evening.
From third on the grid, Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi, who won last time out in Imola, extended their championship lead with a near flawless drive in front of almost 100,000 spectators trackside.
In the final two hours of the race, after a third and final safety car restart, the No. 51’s engineers on the pit wall managed to execute a perfect strategy. The car pitted from the lead and emerged in the same position with 10 minutes remaining, after a number of other contending cars required longer final splashes of fuel.
The winning margin in the end was just 4.2s, as Pier Guidi led home the pole-sitting No. 50 of Nicklas Nielsen, Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina, which finished the race with next-to-no virtual energy left in the tank.
It was touch and go as to whether the No. 50 would need to make a seventh stop like every other car in the top 10. But Nielsen put in a calculated drive and was helped by two late brief FCY periods, which allowed him to save energy.
This came after a flashpoint in the middle of the race that compromised the No. 50’s strategy, when the team opted to switch the positions of its two cars on the pit lane using the blend line.
It allowed the No. 51 to go ahead of the No. 50, enabling both cars to pit in their correct bays in the ideal sequence. After race control noted the move, Ferrari then chose to switch positions again on-track and task the No. 50 with pulling out a six-second lead to offset any potential penalty.
The 499Ps may have had the ultimate pace all week, but this race was far from a walkover and kept everyone up and down the pit lane guessing right to the end, with all eight Hypercar manufacturers finishing on the lead lap.
“I still can’t believe it,” Pier Guidi said after the race. “At the start of the weekend, it was difficult, and at the end I was pushing on every lap. I gave everything, I am finished. I tried to be as quick as I could before the splash (to build enough of a gap to hold onto the lead after a seventh visit to the pits). The guys worked so hard repairing the car earlier in the weekend (after the car’s off at Raidillon in second practice).”
Calado added: “I didn’t expect that. It was a mental race, so up and down with so many incidents. The car was clearly super strong, the team were also spot on with strategy. They have improved so much and it’s made such a big difference.”
Alpine’s No. 36 A424 almost claimed a surprise first win for the brand’s LMDh program but came home third after a puncture late in the race forced an unscheduled stop. Mick Schumacher would finish within a second of the No. 50 and 5.1s off the leading car after taking 16 more seconds of fuel at its final pit stop with 29 minutes remaining.
The big crowd on hand at Spa was treated to a nail-biting finish as strategies played out. Charly Lopez/DPPI
“We are a little disappointed, but we are proud of this result for the team,” No. 36 driver Fred Makowiecki admitted. “We understand the car better and better. We also start to operate better. We have a very strong challenger in front of us (Ferrari). We obviously need to continue in that direction.
“Without the puncture, we probably would have finished P2. In the end, we still finish on the podium. It’s the second time in a row. It shows that we are working in the right direction.”
Off the podium, Toyota Gazoo Racing found a way to strategize a shock fourth-place finish for the No. 8 GR010 from 15th on the grid on a week when the team struggled. The team pitted the car early and out of sequence towards the end to avoid a late splash, and it proved to be a master stroke as the car ended up in the top five and just 32 seconds behind the No. 51.
“I’m so proud of the guys,” a fired-up Sebastien Buemi said post-race. “We had to pit me early to give me clear air and use strategy to make up places. It was the only way to compete as we couldn’t pass anyone on the straights.”
Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s pair of V-Series.Rs took fifth and sixth after what was easily the British team’s strongest showing since becoming the GM brand’s Hypercar service provider. The only blot on the page was a drive-through for the No. 38 after a Sebastien Bourdais turned the No. 5 Porsche into a spin at Les Combes at the start.
Peugeot showed so much promise, led a chunk of the race, but fell away and came away with no points on a weekend when the team had a real chance of a podium.
The No. 93 crossed the line in 11th place. It was unlucky with pit strategy after running out of sequence in the second half, losing key track position when it had to pit under green in hour four before the rest of the field came in under VSC, rejoining ahead.
Malthe Jakobsen was then forced into the garage in the No. 94 following a left-rear suspension failure at Les Combes during a restart in the fifth hour. It didn’t rejoin.
It was a similar situation for BMW Team WRT. It too displayed front-running pace and was the only team to spend a significant portion of the race on soft Michelins; everyone else used mediums.
The No. 15 M Hybrid V8 lost out to a pair of early penalties and finished 10th. The No. 20, after fighting tooth-and-nail with the No. 51 Ferrari late in the race, ended up in the box with mechanics furiously working on its right-front corner in the final hour.
As for the No. 83 AF Corse 499P, which started on the front row, it was classified 30th and 39 laps down after a turbo issue forced Phil Hanson into the box twice in the first hour, knocking the car out of contention.
After much argy bargy throughout, Vista AF Corse marched to their first win by quite some margun. Julien Delfosse / DPPI
LMGT3 felt like a touring car race throughout, delivering constant door-to-door action, with plenty of contact and close shaves.
Vista AF Corse added to Ferrari’s big day in Belgium with a double podium. The No. 21 296 LMGT3 of Francois Heriau, Alessio Rovera and Simon Mann scored its first win of the season by 40s, after Rovera pulled a big gap on fresh tires at the end. The No. 54 sister car took third after a late push.
“I’m delighted, we got our revenge after Imola. We got the win right before Le Mans, it’s a big moment before the big one,” Heriau said after he and his teammates took second in the points standings, closing the gap to the No. 33 TF Sport Corvette, which finished outside the points.
“The plan was to save our tires at the beginning of the race in order to make Alessio’s life easier at the end. The plan was to double my stint with the tires. We unfortunately had a drive-through penalty because, as we were about to pit, we got an FCY. We did an emergency pit stop, which lasted a few seconds too long too and got a penalty for that.
“We never gave up, though and came back to fight at the front. It was not an easy win. Luckily for us, everything went well in the end. I had a good fight with the other cars. I had a lot of fun.”
Splitting the two Ferraris was Proton Competition’s No. 88 Ford Mustang GT3 in second. It was the German team’s best result since becoming a Ford partner team, made even sweeter by the No. 77 finishing just off the podium in fourth.
Heart of Racing’s No. 27 Aston Martin bounced back nicely from its retirement in Imola by completing the top five, finishing five seconds up the road from the other Aston Martin in the field entered by Racing Spirit of Leman.
Further back, it was a frustrating day for Manthey 1st Phorm’s Imola-winning Porsche that took seventh and the pole-sitting No. 78 AKKODIS ASP Lexus that failed to recover from a drive-through and finished eighth.
For McLaren and United Autosports, it was an even more forgettable day. The No. 95 GT3 Evo ended up in the barriers hard at Les Combes in hour three after Sean Gelael and Iron Lynx’s Matteo Cairoli came together. It was the second car in LMGT3 to retire after the No. 31 Bend WRT BMW was withdrawn early on after contact at the Bus Stop and La Source left Yasser Shahin in the gravel with broken steering.
United’s sister No. 59 McLaren then went nose-first into the tires at Campus an hour later when Sebastian Baud had side-on contact with Racing Spirit of Leman’s Eduardo Barrichello. Baud managed to return to the track as the third virtual safety car procedure was called, but the car would go on to finish 15th after spending 11 minutes in the garage for repairs to the right rear.
TF Sport also left the circuit with no points. Its Corvettes finished 13th and 14th, with the No. 33 beating the No. 81 home after both Z06 GT3.Rs lacked outright speed.
Next up on the schedule is the Le Mans 24 Hours on June 14th and 15th.
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