In the round-up: Charles Leclerc says he wants to take part in the Le Mans 24 Hours one day after Ferrari won the event for the first time in 58 years.
In brief
Leclerc hopes to tackle Le Mans “one day”
Speaking yesterday after Ferrari claimed its first outright victory at La Sarthe since 1965, Leclerc said he “would love to” take part in the race himself one day.
“It’s an incredible event,” he told Eurosport. “For sure one day in my life I want to tick that box. When it will be I don’t know. I’m just extremely proud of what Ferrari has done today. It’s been crazy.”
Former F1 driver Antonio Giovinazzi shared victory in the race with Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado. Ferrari’s second car finished fifth.
“It feels absolutely amazing,” said Leclerc. “Having a Ferrari winning it’s incredible after a return after so many years, it’s a very special edition. Unlucky for the second Ferrari as we had a small impact with a small rock on one radiator so that made us lose a lot of time.”
Hartley defends Hirakawa over costly crash
Toyota hypercar driver Brendon Hartley backed team mate Ryo Hirakawa after his potentially race-losing crash at Arnage late in the race. The number eight Toyota was chasing the race-winning Ferrari at the time.
Having been 16 seconds off the lead before Hirakawa’s error, the car dropped to more than three minutes adrift. The leading Ferrari beat them to victory by 81 seconds.
“I knew if we just tried to put them under some kind of pressure, they had the pace advantage, but we did everything,” Hartley said after the race. “We threw everything at them.
“We put Ryo in, we said, ‘look, full risk, maximum attack – we want to win the race’. He had a little accident, it happens. It could happen to any of us, and it happened to many guys out there the last 24 hours. So full support for Ryo as well. The goal was to go maximum attack and that’s what we did.”
Boya takes clean sweep at Monza
MP Motorsport driver Mari Boya won the second of two races in the Eurocup-3 at Monza to complete a clean sweep of the weekend and take his third successive win in his participation in the series.
Boya fell to third at the start but climbed back to pass Esteban Masson in the closing laps to win. The victory moves Boya up to second in the series championship, four points behind Masson.
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On this day in motorsport
- 30 years ago today Jacques Villeneuve won the Formula Atlantic race supporting the Canadian Grand Prix
