Ferrari’s 24 Hours of Le Mans victory is Autosport’s Time of the Year

The legendary Italian team returned to the top class of motor racing with a factory attack for the first time in 50 years.

Two 499P Hypercars closed out the front row and the car of James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi took the win after a great battle with Toyota.

The award, which is open to exceptional moments from world-class sports, was presented on December 3 at Sports Awards at Grosvenor House on Park Lane.

Ferrari’s success came on top of Josef Newgarden’s first Indianapolis 500 victory, Max Verstappen setting a new Formula 1 winning streak at the Italian GP and Shane van Gisbergen’s surprise victory in his NASCAR Cup debut at Chicago.

McLaren boss Zak Brown presented the award to Ferrari hypercar boss Antonello Coletta and 24 Hours of Le Mans winning driver James Calado.

Coletta said: “We won the most important edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours, leading for more or less 23 hours of the race and then we had a technical problem, and everyone had a heart attack, but we got to the end. win. Win Le Mans it was always the dream of our founder Enzo Ferrari.”

Previous winners include George Russell’s maiden victory at the 2022 Brazilian GP and Jean-Eric Vergne becoming the first driver to claim multiple Formula E titles.

Other awards decided by a panel of expert judges include the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Driver of the Year Award, the Autosport Williams Engineer of the Future Award, the Autosport Gold Medal which includes the Gregor Grant Lifetime Achievement Award, the John Bolster Award for technical achievement, Innovation and Innovation award and Broadcaster of the Year. The new award for 2023 is Business Partnership of the Year.

Other categories, which are decided by fan voting, include Pirelli International Rally Driver of the Year, British Rally Driver of the Year, Rally Driver of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Car of the Year International Racing of the Year and National Driver of the Year.

To find out about our other Award winners, go to autosport.com/ award