There have been two seasons now of LMGT3 competition in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and both have been won by Manthey – although the heavily-decorated Porsche outfit had to stave off a sterner threat to retain its coveted crown in 2025.
Despite winning the second round of the campaign at Imola, it was not until Manthey 1st Phorm trio Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Ryan Hardwick took the chequered flag first in-class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans – the Eifel-based operation’s sixth success at La Sarthe – that the #91 crew vaulted to the summit of the standings. And there they would stay.
The Austrian, Italian and American managed no result better than fifth from the following three races, but their commendable consistency was enough to keep them at the top of the table, and heading into last month’s Bahrain title-decider, they held an 11-point advantage in the quest for honours.
That looked like it may count for little when a torrid qualifying session restricted them to the back row of the 18-strong starting grid for the crucial eight-hour contest, but a nerve-free performance from all three drivers saw them scythe through the field to finish fourth – securing the end-of-season spoils in the process.
As in 2024, it was VISTA AF Corse that ultimately pushed Manthey the hardest. Spa-Francorchamps winners Alessio Rovera, Simon Mann and François Hériau were frequent protagonists for the podium places, but were left to rue a retirement at Imola – where Mann found himself spun out of the lead by BMW’s Valentino Rossi – and a five-second penalty in the closing stages at Fuji that denied the Ferrari crew victory.
Those setbacks arguably cost VISTA the biggest prize, and there was a similar story of what-might-have-been for Akkodis ASP Team and its Lexus RC F – unquestionably the most improved package on the grid. The French squad’s #87 entry was – in tandem with the #91 Manthey Porsche – the only car to triumph more than once, as double world champion José María López, Clemens Schmid and FIA WEC newcomer Petru Umbrărescu prevailed in both São Paulo and Sakhir.
Despite failing to tally points in half of the races, when the trio did score, they scored big, with the sister #78 Lexus showing a similar turn-of-speed – as evidenced by rising star Finn Gehrsitz’s pair of pole positions – but falling foul of more reliability gremlins.
A first podium of the year in the Bahrain finale proved sufficient to catapult Heart of Racing Team’s Mattia Drudi, Zacharie Robichon and Ian James up the order into fourth, ahead of the twin TF Sport entries. The #81 Corvette piloted by Charlie Eastwood, Rui Andrade and Tom Van Rompuy narrowly pipped team-mates Daniel Juncadella, Jonny Edgar and Ben Keating to fifth in the overall classification, appropriately enough concluding proceedings on 81 points. Both crews reached the top step of the rostrum along the way.
Like the team’s #21 car, the #54 VISTA Ferrari also lost a victory – for late-race contact in Texas – with Team WRT’s two BMW M4 Evos achieving a brace of podiums apiece but struggling to reproduce that front-running form on a regular basis.
An inherited win in Austin and runner-up finish in the Qatar curtain-raiser – less than half-a-second shy of the top step – were the highlights of an otherwise disappointing campaign for United Autosports’ McLarens, while Iron Lynx’s Mercedes-AMG saved its best until last by coming within a whisker of triumphing in Sakhir, where Maxime Martin hounded the #87 Lexus right the way to the flag.
Proton Competition’s Ford Mustangs showed flashes of real form – most notably at Spa and COTA – and arguably the most popular result of the season came in São Paulo, where home hero Eduardo ‘Dudu’ Barrichello (Racing Spirit of Léman) sent the local crowd into rapture by capturing pole position and then, 24 hours later, a hard-fought third-place finish by dint of grittily overhauling the Iron Dames Porsche in the dying moments. The young Brazilian was subsequently selected as FIA WEC’s ‘Revelation of the Year’.
Check out the final 2025 championship standings and re-live the season’s major highlights!
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