New Ferrari 499P hypercar racer revealed

For the first time in half a century, Ferrari will compete for the outright win at the Le Mans 24 Hour endurance race with its all-new 2023 Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar racer.

Revealing its wild new prototype racer over the weekend, Ferrari says the design draws a link from its illustrious racing past to its modern supercars.

Ferrari will enter two 499P race cars with its factory Ferrari AF Corse team in the 2023 World Endurance Championship, opening its campaign on March 17 at the 100 Miles of Sebring in Florida.

If you’re wondering about the name, the 499 represents the 0.499-litre capacity of each of the six cylinders, while the P refers to prototype.

A similar nomenclature was used for Ferrari’s last factory endurance racer, the 312P that last competed back in 1973.

The link with the previous endurance racer also explains the 499P’s yellow-striped livery.

Built to the LMH regulations rather than the LMDh rules under which Porsche will develop its racer, the Ferrari doesn’t sit on an off-the-shelf chassis and was built entirely in-house.

The more liberal LMH regs allowed Ferrari to develop its own hybrid tech for the 499P, and that explains why it gets a 900-volt electrical architecture and a powerful 200kW energy recovery system that powers the front axle.

In total, power is actually limited to just 500kW, although the total output could be much greater.

To boost efficiency needed for endurance racing, Ferrari has developed a brake-by-wire system that better aids energy recovery from the front axle, while power from the Ferrari 296 GT3-derived 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 is fed to the rear wheels via a seven-speed sequential transmission.

Ferrari will fight in the LMH class of 2023 against the likes of Toyota Gazoo Racing (which has won the previous five Le Mans races), plus Peugeot, which has already shown off its 9X8 racer.

Glickenhaus might eventually join the party with its 007LMH racer, although also challenging for the outright win will be Porsche and Cadillac with their LMDh racers.

In 2024, the LMDh category will expand further to include Alpine, BMW and Lamborghini.

Commenting on its new entry back in top-flight endurance racing, Ferrari chairman John Elkann said: “The 499P sees us return to compete for outright victory in the WEC series. When we decided to commit to this project, we embarked on a path of innovation and development, faithful to our tradition.

“We enter this challenge with humility, but conscious of a history that has taken us to over 20 world endurance titles and nine overall victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans,” he said.