Ferrari's new Le Mans Hypercar hit Imola shortly after making its debut.
The Ferrari 499P, the brand’s first official prototype racer in a half-century, debuted over the weekend at the Ferrari Finali Mondiali event at Imola. Soon after, a 499P hit the track for some parade laps alongside the new 296 GT3, giving us our first full look at the Le Mans Hypercar in action.
We must concede some excitement at the Italian announcer’s exclamation of “Quattro-Nove-Nove P” as this is a historic moment for Ferrari and sports-car racing in general. The automaker built its legend on success at Le Mans in the Fifties and Sixties, and with the 499P, it will challenge for an overall win for the first time in over a half-century.
Unfortunately, though unsurprisingly, the 499P doesn’t really sound like much. It uses a twin-turbo V-6 related to the 296 GT3 engine—and thus, the 296 road car—and it makes a fairly muted, if raspy sound. That’s par for the course with modern racing turbo V-6s, or really any turbocharged race engines. Next year’s Le Mans grid will consist of Hypercars from Toyota, Peugeot, Ferrari, and possibly Glickenhaus, plus LMDh cars from Porsche, Cadillac, and of those cars, the Caddy, with its naturally aspirated V-8, is the only that sounds truly great.
Still, the 499P is a wonderful addition to the huge field of top-level prototypes set to compete next year. Ferrari will have a fight on its hands if it wants to reclaim Le Mans glory.
Chris Perkins Senior Editor Chris Perkins is the Web Editor for Road & Track magazine.
Keyword: See the Ferrari 499P Uncovered on Track For the First Time