2023 Le Mans winner Giovinazzi: 'The driving style is not much different to F1'

The former Alfa Romeo F1 driver returned to the top step of a motorsport podium on Sunday, when he, alongside James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi, guided Ferrari to their first outright win of the Le Mans 24 Hours since 1965.

It was a momentous day for Ferrari, who ended Toyota’s dominance of the iconic race.

• Antonio Giovinazzi - from F1 underperformer to triumphing at Le Mans

Speaking to TopGear, Giovinazzi explained how driving a Ferrari hypercar felt relative to an F1 car.

“To be honest, the driving style is not much different from an F1 car,” he said. “It’s a racing car so you drive it the same way. Of course, it’s 200kg heavier [than an F1 car] so you can feel this under braking, the change of direction on the car is more ‘lazy’. But I was surprised in the speed coming here, in the last sector, how much you can feel the downforce we have… it’s quite impressive. 

“So the Porsche corner is pretty fast. This is a real car, a proper car…

"Yesterday [during Hyperpole] we touched almost 350km/h (217mph), so it’s a fast car as well. So yeah, it’s nice to drive. That’s in quali. In the race we don’t push to the maximum because we have traffic, we need to overtake cars seven or eight times during a lap."

Even though Giovinazzi has raced in other legendary races such as the Monaco Grand Prix, he hailed the Le Mans race as the “greatest".

• Toyota race ruined when it hit a squirrel at 24 Hours of Le Mans

“In terms of the car’s balance, it depends on the track,” he added. “It’s a track-by-track thing. At Spa it was fine, but then you have a track where there’s more wear on the rear. How do I like to set the car up? [smiles] I like stability. If there’s some understeer I don’t care, as long as there is stability.

“In terms of the car’s speed, yes, I was a bit surprised. In terms of race pace, Toyota is still ahead of us. But we put our car on the front row so the first target is done. Now we need to go to the second one, and put pressure on Toyota. It’s a long race and if we can put pressure on them maybe they’ll make a mistake and we can get in front of them. 

“Toyota has lots of experience, they know how to win at Le Mans. Is this the greatest motor race of them all? For me, yes.”