Motorsport
Ferrari at Le Mans: from 1949 to the 499P, all 12 overall wins
Ferrari has won Le Mans outright 12 times: on its 1949 debut, in 1954 and 1958, six in a row from 1960 to 1965, then three straight with the 499P from 2023 to 2025. Here is every win.
By the My Hangar editorsPublished 6 min read
Key takeaways
- Ferrari has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright 12 times, third behind Porsche with 19 and Audi with 13.
- Ferrari won on its Le Mans debut in 1949, when Luigi Chinetti drove for almost 23 of the 24 hours in a 166 MM.
- Ferrari won six Le Mans races in a row from 1960 to 1965, ending with a privately entered 250 LM.
- After a 58-year gap, the 499P won in 2023, 2024 and 2025 with three different crews.
- Toyota ended the run in 2026, when the best Ferrari, the No. 51, finished fifth.
Ferrari has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright 12 times: on its 1949 debut, in 1954 and 1958, six in a row from 1960 to 1965, and three more with the 499P from 2023 to 2025. Only Porsche, with 19, and Audi, with 13, have won more. Toyota ended the latest run in 2026, when the best Ferrari finished fifth.
How many times has Ferrari won Le Mans?
Twelve overall wins, and a long list of class wins besides. Ferrari counted 29 class victories going into the 2023 race, some of the most memorable with production-derived GT cars.
Every overall win is listed below, with crews from Ferrari's roll of honour (the 2025 crew from the race organiser) and car variants and lap counts from the winners' list. Ferrari's own list groups the 1958, 1960 and 1961 cars as 250 Testa Rossa and calls the 1962 car a 330 TR; the table uses the more specific variant names.
| Year | Car | Drivers | Entrant | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1949 | 166 MM | Luigi Chinetti, Lord Selsdon | Lord Selsdon | 235 |
| 1954 | 375 Plus | José Froilán González, Maurice Trintignant | Scuderia Ferrari | 302 |
| 1958 | 250 TR58 | Olivier Gendebien, Phil Hill | Scuderia Ferrari | 305 |
| 1960 | 250 TR59/60 | Paul Frère, Olivier Gendebien | Scuderia Ferrari | 314 |
| 1961 | 250 TRI/61 | Olivier Gendebien, Phil Hill | Scuderia Ferrari | 333 |
| 1962 | 330 TRI/LM | Phil Hill, Olivier Gendebien | Scuderia Ferrari | 331 |
| 1963 | 250 P | Lorenzo Bandini, Ludovico Scarfiotti | SpA Ferrari SEFAC | 339 |
| 1964 | 275 P | Jean Guichet, Nino Vaccarella | SpA Ferrari SEFAC | 349 |
| 1965 | 250 LM | Jochen Rindt, Masten Gregory | North American Racing Team | 348 |
| 2023 | 499P (No. 51) | Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi | Ferrari AF Corse | 342 |
| 2024 | 499P (No. 50) | Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen | Ferrari AF Corse | 311 |
| 2025 | 499P (No. 83) | Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye, Phil Hanson | AF Corse | 387 |
How did Ferrari win on its Le Mans debut in 1949?
With a small car and one extraordinary driver. Two 166 MMs started the first post-war race, and the No. 22 of Luigi Chinetti and Lord Selsdon won by a single lap after 235 laps and 3,178 km.
The car weighed 680 kg and its 1,995 cc V12 made 140 hp, a very different recipe from the bigger four- and six-cylinder rivals. It was the first V12 to win Le Mans, and Ferrari says its 2.0-litre engine was the smallest of any winner to that point.
The human story is better still. Selsdon felt unwell and managed about 1 hour 12 minutes, so Chinetti drove for almost 23 of the 24 hours, nursing a slipping clutch at the end. He later became Ferrari's importer in North America, a detail that returns in 1965. See where it sits in the wider story on the Ferrari timeline.
How did Ferrari win six Le Mans races in a row?
With a run of V12 sports cars and prototypes, most of them from the 250 family. The six straight wins from 1960 to 1965 followed earlier victories in 1954 and 1958.
In 1954 José Froilán González and Maurice Trintignant held off the Jaguar D-Types with the 375 Plus. In 1958 Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien drove the 250 TR through heavy rain and beat the second-placed Aston Martin by 12 laps. Gendebien would finish with four Ferrari wins at Le Mans.
Two later races stand out:
- 1963: the 250 P gave Le Mans its first win for a rear-mid-engined car, and Lorenzo Bandini and Ludovico Scarfiotti were the first all-Italian winning crew. They won by 16 laps, with Ferraris in the first six places.
- 1965: Ford or Ford-engined cars filled 11 entries, and by about the seventh hour every GT40 had retired. The works 330 P2s then hit brake trouble, leaving a privately entered 250 LM from Chinetti's North American Racing Team to win by five laps from another private 250 LM. The podium was all Ferrari.
The name is misleading on that last one. Ferrari credits the "250" LM with a 3,285 cc V12, which works out at about 274 cc a cylinder. Our guide to how Ferrari names work explains why that matters.
Why did Ferrari take 58 years to win again?
Ford ended the streak in 1966, no Ferrari won again before the factory team stopped, and it then stayed away from the top class for 50 years. Its last entry, in 1973, brought second place with a 312 P.
Ferrari says it last entered Le Mans as Scuderia Ferrari in 1973, and it returned to the top class only in 2023, half a century later. In between, Ferraris kept racing at the Sarthe, often winning their class. Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado won LMGTE Pro in 2019 and again in 2021, sharing the car with Côme Ledogar and then Daniel Serra.
How did the 499P win three years running?
With a different crew each time, and a close finish twice. The 499P is a Le Mans Hypercar with a twin-turbo V6 based on the 296 GT3 engine and a front electric motor, for 680 cv in total.
- 2023: on the race's centenary, a 499P started from pole and the No. 51 won by 1 minute 21.793 seconds from the No. 8 Toyota. Only 39 of 62 starters were classified.
- 2024: the No. 50 beat the No. 7 Toyota by 14 seconds. A failed door catch disrupted its pit schedule, so Nicklas Nielsen stretched a stint to 51 minutes and finished with about 2% of the car's virtual energy left.
- 2025: the yellow No. 83 of AF Corse beat the No. 6 Porsche 963 by 14.084 seconds after 387 laps. It was the first win for a customer team since Champion Racing in 2005, and Robert Kubica became the first Polish overall winner.
The run ended in 2026. The No. 7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries beat the No. 20 BMW, while the No. 51 Ferrari was fifth and the No. 83 seventh. You can test your memory of all of this in the daily Ferrari quiz.
FAQ
How many times has Ferrari won the 24 Hours of Le Mans?
Twelve times overall: 1949, 1954, 1958, every year from 1960 to 1965, and 2023, 2024 and 2025. That puts Ferrari third behind Porsche and Audi.
What was Ferrari's first Le Mans win?
The 1949 race, Ferrari's debut there. Luigi Chinetti and Lord Selsdon won in a 166 MM, covering 235 laps and 3,178 km.
When did Ferrari last win Le Mans?
In 2025, with the No. 83 AF Corse 499P of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson. In 2026 Toyota won and the best Ferrari finished fifth.
Who has won Le Mans most often for Ferrari?
Olivier Gendebien, with four wins in 1958, 1960, 1961 and 1962. Phil Hill won three times with him.
Sources
- Ferrari history at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ferrari.com
- Magical Le Mans history, Ferrari Magazine
- In it for the long run: Ferrari at Le Mans, Ferrari Magazine
- AF Corse team take Ferrari into the history books at Le Mans, 24h-lemans.com
- Le Mans 24 Hours: Ferrari beats Toyota in race of attrition, Autosport
- Ferrari takes back-to-back wins at Le Mans 2024, Motor Sport Magazine
- 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans: full results for all classes, Crash.net
- List of 24 Hours of Le Mans winners, Wikipedia
- 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans, Wikipedia
Every figure here was checked against at least two independent sources, listed at the end.
