Ferrari made it three consecutive victories in the FIA World Endurance Championship in Belgium today, as the Prancing Horse fended off the challenge of an inspired Alpine to triumph in an enthralling six-hour contest.
In front of the biggest crowd in 14 visits to Spa, the 98,874 on-site spectators were treated to a race that will live long in the memory. While the results sheet might confirm a Ferrari one-two – the #51 taking the chequered flag just four seconds ahead of the sister #50 scarlet prototype – the truth was that the 2025 TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps marked the first time this season that the Italian marque’s hegemony was truly threatened.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the final result was the fact that the winning Hypercar had required a significant repair job after Antonio Giovinazzi crashed at the top of Eau Rouge on his first lap out of the pits during Thursday’s FP2 session, putting the #51 trio immediately on the back foot. In company with team-mates James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi, however, the Italian repaid the Ferrari mechanics’ toil in fine style.
The Briton confessed to a conservative opening stint as he looked after his Michelin tyres, before pressing on and handing over to Giovinazzi, who maintained the momentum. Pier Guidi took over for the remainder of the race, engaging in some epic battles along the way – most notably with BMW’s Robin Frijns and Alpine’s Mick Schumacher, thrilling fans with a spectacular three-way tussle in the fifth hour.
By taking on less fuel, the #51 Ferrari leapfrogged the #50 car – the pole position-winner having led the majority of the race – during the subsequent pit-stop phase, and while its short-fuelling tactic meant it would have to stop again, by the time it did, Pier Guidi had built up enough of a margin to retain the lead, going on to cement the first back-to-back win for the same crew in FIA WEC since 2023.
“It was a good, fun race,” reflected the Italian. “I had a few enjoyable fights with the Toyota and the Alpine, and my stints flew by, because I could never be relaxed inside the car – towards the end especially, I had to produce qualifying-style laps to create a gap. The team did an amazing job, especially with the strategy. In some ways, this result is a kind of revenge for last year at Spa, which was quite painful. This year, we are smiling.”
“I want to thank my team-mates and the mechanics, who did a fantastic job on Thursday to put the car back together,” added Giovinazzi. “It was not a smooth start to the weekend, but we fought back well. If you want to win in FIA WEC, you need to be in the right place at the right time, and I think we all deserve this one.”
Whether the #50 car could reach the chequered flag without having to make a late splash ‘n’ dash pit visit was far less clear, but ultimately, Nicklas Nielsen clung grittily onto the runner-up spoils by less than a second in the car he shares with Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina.
The Hypercar podium was completed by the #36 Alpine Endurance Team A424 piloted by Schumacher, Jules Gounon and Frédéric Makowiecki. The latter was on a mission right from the start as he scythed from sixth on the grid up to second, before countryman Gounon boldly snatched the lead from Molina on the run towards Eau Rouge at the beginning of his stint.
Schumacher subsequently continued that excellent form, pushing Nielsen right to the end to secure Les Bleus’ second podium in a row and consolidate the French manufacturer’s strong start to 2025.
In the #8 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing entry, Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa exploited an alternative strategy to climb from a lowly 15th on the grid up to fourth, as Cadillac claimed its best finish of the season to-date with fifth and sixth places for the #12 and #38 Cadillac V-Series.R prototypes.
Two legends of GT racing went head-to-head in the LMGT3 category, as Ferrari and Ford reprised their classic duel from the 1960s – and on this occasion, it was the Italian marque that emerged on top.
During the early phases, Lexus looked to be on-course to break its duck in FIA WEC competition as Arnold Robin established an advantage of ten seconds in the pole-sitting Akkodis ASP Team RC F LMGT3, but a slow pit-stop for the Japanese sportscar dropped it down the order, and thereafter, the #78 crew never truly recovered.
That thrust VISTA AF Corse and Proton Competition into the spotlight – and into a fight for the top step of the podium. After hitting the front of the field, the #21 Ferrari 296 LMGT3 – shared by Alessio Rovera, François Heriau and Simon Mann – made good its escape. The trio duly clinched the Italian outfit’s first victory of 2025 – and third from the last five races – by a shade over 40 seconds.
Less than three seconds blanketed the #88 Ford Mustang, #54 Ferrari and #77 Mustang in the scrap for the runner-up spot, while Aston Martin’s bid was ultimately undone by incidents and ill-timed safety car interventions.
Round four of the 2025 FIA WEC campaign – the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans in northern France – will take place on 11-15 June.
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