Ferrari 499P should be counted among greatest endurance cars of all time - Phil Hanson

Newly-crowned 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Phil Hanson believes the Ferrari 499P deserved to be ranked among the best endurance racers of all time.

Ferrari returned to the top echelon of sportscar racing in 2023 after a 50-year hiatus with the 499P LMH, as it joined the Hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship.

Since its debut, the 499P has been undefeated at Le Mans, with Hanson, Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye's victory in AF Corse’s customer No. 83 entry earlier this month marking the third successive triumph for the LMH prototype.

The success of the 499P has brought Ferrari within one victory of matching Audi’s tally of 12 Le Mans wins, although with Porsche still comfortably ahead on 19.

Beyond its dominance at La Sarthe, Ferrari has also won four other races in the WEC with its V6-powered contender, including three in a row at the start of the season prior to Le Mans.

Asked if it’s time to consider the Ferrari 499P as one of the greatest endurance racing cars ever built, Hanson told reporters including Crash.net: “Yeah, you do. Any car that wins Le Mans, you have to consider in that list anyway, let alone a car that's managed to do it with three different physical cars in three different years and three very different races.

“This year was incredibly different to the last two, so it shows you that it's proved the test of time and the test of endurance, as well as all the tests of the different conditions that we've had across the last three years. It's an incredible piece of machinery.”

Despite Ferrari’s recent success at Le Mans and the WEC, Hanson had doubts about the Italian marque’s chances going into the race.

With the two factory cars having shared the spoils during the two previous editions, a third triumph for AF Corse's privately-entered 499P seemed “too good to be true” for the Briton.

But Ferrari was quick from the very beginning at Le Mans, with its three cars running 1-2-3 for much of the race.

And while the two works cars ran into technical problems late on, after already being delayed by multiple penalties, the No. 83 crew kept it clean to take the win by 14 seconds.

“It's an incredible statement to the other manufacturers that Ferrari were able to come in and win for the first three years in a row,” Hanson.

“I kind of wrote it off personally this year that Ferrari would win again and I think a lot of people did too. They're probably surprised about how much performance Ferrari were able to find off the back of incredible work and dedicated time with the engineers trying to find an optimised set-up and the package.

“We were expecting it to be a much tougher year and every year it's getting tougher and tougher and tougher. It's so tough to compete with all these top manufacturers, top teams and strong drivers.

"And the cars are not breaking down now. They're just able to endure 24 hours of abuse and the Ferrari is obviously at the top of that, where it can take absolutely everything that we're throwing at it for 24 hours and still perform.

“Absolute credit to this monster that they've built.”

Also read: Phil Hanson’s unconventional path to becoming a Le Mans winner with Ferrari