Ferrari Ascending in WEC Championship Race
Words and photos by Eddie LePine
“You cannot describe passion. You can only live it.” – Enzo Ferrari.
The Ferrari AF Corse team took a giant leap forward in the race for the FIA-WEC World
Championship at the Circuit of the Americas by taking a hard fought, but somewhat
surprising win, after the dominating Toyota Hypercar #7 of Nyck de Vries, Kamui
Kobayashi and Mike Conway suffered a power steering failure within minutes of the
finish of the 6-hour race in the Texas heat.
James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi keeping cool
As such, the #50 Ferrari 499P driving crew of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen leapfrogged to third place overall in the season championship with the victory in Austin and crucially, only three races remaining for 2026: Japan on September 27, Spain on October 18 and Italy on November 8. Last season’s champions are looking stronger after CotA as they attempt to repeat as champions.
Miguel Molina: “I’m really happy. We’ve been working really hard behind the scenes to try and get back to this position and we did a really good race with no mishaps. In the end, it was our day, so big thanks to the team. Now we need to take this momentum forward with us.”
Ferrari has a long and storied history of racing in the US, and this latest win at CotA is just a continuation of that history of achievement. Luigi Chinetti first imported Ferraris into the US in 1949 and that same year Briggs Cunningham won Ferrari’s first race on US soil by winning in his Ferrari 166 Spider at the Long Island Suffolk County Airport.
In 1958 Chinetti founded NART (North American Racing Team) and countless victories followed for Ferrari, including international endurance races at Daytona, Sebring and Watkins Glen.
“Race cars are neither beautiful nor ugly. They become beautiful when they win.” –
Enzo Ferrari
Legendary drivers have raced those Ferrari sports cars over the years in the US. Names like
Mario Andretti, Jacky Ickx, Ronnie Peterson, Brian Redman, the aforementioned Briggs Cunningham and Luigi Chinetti (as well as his son, Luigi Jr.).
Perhaps some of the more recent successes of Ferrari in endurance racing has to do
with the driver line ups that have been put together to drive the 499P all over the world.
Unlike many teams, who switch drivers often, and sometimes in the middle of a season,
the current Ferrari line up has remained constant, and quite successful. The #50 and #51
drivers have been the together since the beginning of the 2023 season. The #83 drivers
have been unchanged since the beginning of the 2025 season. Obviously, great
matchups, great team chemistry. It shows in the results.
Pilots Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen share the #50 car. They are
the defending FIA-WEC Champions and won Pole position at Le Mans in 2023, while
winning the race overall in 2024.
The #51 drivers Alesandro Pier Guidi, Antonio Giovinazzi and James Calado won Le
Mans in 2023, and finished 3rd in both 2024 and 2025.
The privateer AF Corse #83 crew of Philip Hanson, Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye won Le
Mans in 2025. Their first win together came at CotA in 2024, the first victory outside of
Le Mans for the 499P.
Yifei Ye
Phil Hansen
So, the winning ways of Ferrari sportscars continues, both here and around the world.
Who knows what is next? Only time will tell. As Enzo Ferrari said: “The best Ferrari ever made is the next one.”
Agreed.
