MOTORSPORT – Defending world champions Ferrari claimed their first victory of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) with their number 50 crew taking the chequered flag at Lone Star Le Mans in the US.
The AF Corse trio of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, and Nicklas Nielsen put in a strong challenge for the front throughout the six-hour race in their 499P Hypercar. In the closing stages, they took advantage of a technical problem that forced the leading number seven TR010 Hybrid of Toyota Racing to retire.
Fuoco, Molina, and Nielsen finished 4.471 seconds ahead of the number 38 Cadillac Hertz Team Jota crew of Earl Bamber, Sebastien Bourdais, and Jack Aitken in their V-Series.R, while in third were Alpine Endurance Team’s number 35 A424 Hypercar, driven by the trio of Antonio Felix da Costa, Charles Milesi, and Ferdinand Habsburg.
“Today the strategy was really difficult to manage, but the whole team did a great job and we were rewarded,” said Fuoco.
“I also want to congratulate Miguel and Nicklas for what they showed on the track, enabling us to secure a fantastic victory. We pushed from start to finish, even though at one point it seemed that the race was becoming really complicated for us.
“I am very happy with the result. We had been waiting to return to the top step of the podium for some time and finally we managed to do it.”
The result gave Ferrari’s 499P its eighth victory since its competitive debut in the WEC in 2023, its first of the year, and the second at Circuit of the Americas after the first achieved in 2024.
The number 50 crew have also climbed to the top step of a WEC podium for the third time, following the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2024 and the Qatar 1812km last year.
Meanwhile, winning the LMGT3 class were the number 27 Heart of Racing Team Ian James, Zacharie Robichon, and Mattia Drudi in their Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3.
They finished 5.007s ahead of the number 91 Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3 of Manthey DK Engineering, driven by James Cottingham, Timur Boguslavskiy, and Ayhancan Guven.
Heart of Racing Teammates Gray Newell, Eduardo Barrichello, and Jonny Adam in the number 23 Aston Martin completed the podium in class 7.732s behind.
The WEC season resumes with the Six Hours of Fuji – the sixth of eight rounds in Japan – on September 27.
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