Was Robert Kubica the best Ferrari driver over the full course of the 2025 World Endurance Championship? Probably not. But did he stand head and shoulders above the others when it mattered most? Absolutely.
The Pole was in superlative form at the double-points Le Mans 24 Hours round as he played the starring role in AF Corse’s victory with the non-works satellite entry he shared with Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson. He really did make the factory drivers look a bit ordinary. He saved the Prancing Horse’s bacon in a race that it would have been careless to lose given the pace advantage of its 499P Le Mans Hypercar for the majority of the going.
Kubica was more than three tenths up on the averages over the next best driver, Antonio Giovinazzi from the #51 factory line-up and, crucially in the marque’s bid to make it three in a row at the French enduro, didn’t make any mistakes all the while nursing a gearbox glitch. He capped his performance with a quadruple stint lasting three and a half hours to bring the yellow 499P to the chequered flag ahead of the chasing – and very quick in the hotter temperatures of the afternoon – factory Porsche 963 LMDh with an inspired Kevin Estre at the wheel.
Sealing the biggest win of his career driving a Ferrari somehow completed a circle. But for his life-changing accident at the wheel of rally car early in 2011, Kubica might be remembered as a Formula 1 world champion with Ferrari – he had signed a contract with the Scuderia for 2012. The hope has to be that in years to come he is remembered for one of the all-time great performances at the Circuit de la Sarthe, a drive that completed the Italian manufacturer’s hat-trick at the biggest sportscar race of them all. It is deserving of a place in the annals of history.
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