IMSA Regulars Grace LMP2 Podium At 24 Hours of Le Mans

By Tony DiZinno, IMSA Wire Service

The high volume of IMSA competitors, drivers, teams and crews all fought valiantly throughout the 93rd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The best success in the race for those with 2025 IMSA ties came in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class, a class which races in the full IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season and joins the full-season FIA World Endurance Championship grid at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

Inter Europol Competition emerged at the head of the 17-car LMP2 class with the trio of Tom Dillmann, Nick Yelloly and Jakub “Kuba” Smiechowski in their No. 43 ORECA LMP2 07, for the team’s second major endurance race win of 2025 and second at Le Mans. The 2024 IMSA LMP2 champion Dillmann along with Bijoy Garg and Jeremy Clarke shared a similar No. 43 Inter Europol ORECA to win the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in March, the most recent LMP2 WeatherTech Championship race.

Meanwhile AO Racing, running as AO by TF at Le Mans courtesy of its European Le Mans Series LMP2 title in 2024, secured an elusive first win for “Spike” the purple dragon that adorns its No. 199 AO by TF ORECA in the Pro/Am subcategory of LMP2. Team owner PJ Hyett shared the winning entry with his full-season IMSA co-driver Dane Cameron and Louis Deletraz. Deletraz, Jonny Edgar and Robert Kubica shared the AO by TF car in the 2024 ELMS season, with their success earning this car’s entry to Le Mans.

Smiechowski is the only one of these six drivers with a previous Le Mans win, having also been at the wheel of Inter Europol’s previous Le Mans class winning LMP2 car in 2023.

Yelloly, who also won the most recent WeatherTech Championship Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class race in his No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06 in Detroit at the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic, had a tense finish to the race after an otherwise controlled effort with his teammates. A pit lane speeding penalty threatened to upend their race, but issues for their closest rival, the No. 48 VDS Panis Racing ORECA, ensured the penalty wouldn’t affect the race further.

“It’s a dream come true,” Yelloly said on the global race broadcast. “I’ve been fortunate to be in winning cars in 24-hour races in the Nürburgring and Spa. To add Le Mans to the list is special.

“I thought I threw it away to be honest. We were on a slightly different fuel strategy, so I had to push to get a gap. I just locked the rears ever so slightly and over-sped the tiniest bit. A penalty is a penalty, but then I saw smoke from the car behind.”

The No. 48 car of Esteban Masson, Oliver Gray and Franck Perera was second ahead of the No. 199 AO by TF entry of Hyett, Cameron and Deletraz.

Like Inter Europol, AO Racing also won its class at this year’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, with its IMSA Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) lineup of full-season drivers Laurin Heinrich and Klaus Bachler with third driver Alessio Picariello.

This marks AO Racing’s fourth race win across two series (WeatherTech Championship and the FIA WEC), three car numbers (77, 177 and 199), three classes (GTD PRO, GTD and LMP2 Pro/Am) and three liveries (“Rexy,” “Roxy” and “Spike”) this year.

AO Racing has two GTD PRO wins in IMSA, one apiece for its “Rexy” and “Roxy” Porsche variants, a one-off GTD win on the streets of Long Beach with drivers Edgar and Laurens Vanthoor, and now the first win for “Spike” the Dragon.

“What Louis and Dane did was incredible. It’s a testament to the entire team. I love those guys,” Hyett told the Radio Le Mans live broadcast ahead of podium ceremonies.

The polesitting No. 29 TDS Racing ORECA of Mathias Beche, Rodrigo Sales and Clement Novalak finished fifth in LMP2, and second among Pro/Am entries.

Jim Trueman Award winner Nick Boulle’s No. 34 Inter Europol ORECA he shared with Luca Ghiotto and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer ran in podium contention most of the race but ended fourth among Pro/Am entries at the checkered flag.

Image courtesy of Chris duMond at Circuit de la Sarthe via IMSA

Ferrari Wins Overall; Triple Crown Pursuits Come Up Short

Overall, Ferrari enjoyed a largely untroubled run to its third straight Hypercar victory at Le Mans and fourth in as many FIA World Endurance Championship races this season, with the trio of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson sharing the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P.

The No. 83 car led 140 laps while the factory No. 51 car led 95 and No. 50 car led 42; the trio combined to lead 277 of the race’s 387 laps despite starting seventh, 11th and 13th in the 21-car Hypercar field.

Coincidentally, Kubica, Ye and Deletraz all rebounded to win Le Mans this year after losing the race in LMP2 in 2021 when leading on the last lap. For Kubica (Poland) and Ye (China), they’re the first two drivers from their respective countries to win at Le Mans.

With the Ferrari win, none of Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Laurens Vanthoor, Nick Tandy and Felipe Nasr was able to complete an unprecedented single-season overall win sweep of three major endurance sports car races, the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Matt Campbell trio in the No. 6 Porsche 963 finished just 14.084 seconds in arrears in second. Estre turned in a particularly memorable drive, going from 21st and last on the grid to the top five in the opening hour, which positioned them well for the remainder of the race. Despite spending less time in the pits and delivering an otherwise faultless drive, the pace differential proved too difficult to overcome.

The No. 51 Ferrari AF Corse entry of Antonio Giovinazzi, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado finished third ahead of their sister No. 50 car and the first Cadillac, the polesitting No. 12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R.

Among IMSA-affiliated entries, the No. 4 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 of Nasr, Tandy and Pascal Wehrlein incurred some damage in the early morning hours and faded to a ninth-place finish. Both IMSA-regular Cadillacs from Cadillac Whelen and Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing retired with mechanical issues, while both of Aston Martin THOR Team’s new Valkyries made the finish in their Le Mans race debut.

Porsche Wins LMGT3; AWA Scores Top 10 in Le Mans Debut

The Manthey 1st Phorm team won in LMGT3 with the trio of Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Ryan Hardwick sharing the No. 92 Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3. Vista AF Corse’s No. 21 Ferrari 296 GT3 (Francois Heriau, Simon Mann, Alessio Rovera) was second ahead of the No. 81 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R (Tom von Rompuy, Rui Andrade, Charlie Eastwood).

The polesitting No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin AMR Vantage LMGT3 finished just off the podium in fourth with the trio of Mattia Drudi, Ian James and Zacharie Robichon.

Bob Akin Award winner Orey Fidani drove a clean race in the Canadian-flag liveried No. 13 AWA Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R he shared with Matt Bell and Lars Kern, and the trio drove from 20th on the grid to 10th at the checkered flag.

A high volume of drivers, teams and crews will resume their 2025 IMSA seasons quickly, next week, at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen from Watkins Glen International. That race airs live at noon ET on Sunday, June 22, on network NBC.