Le Mans 24 Hours winner. That’s the tag that’s now nailed firmly ahead of the name James Calado, and has been since Ferrari’s victory in the centenary running of the French enduro last summer. Only it should really be, as the man himself points out, three-time Le Mans winner.
When Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi took victory aboard their 499P Le Mans Hypercar in June, the first two were adding to their tally of wins at sportscar racing’s ‘Big One’. The Briton and long-time Italian team-mate Pier Guidi were winners at the World Endurance Championship blue-riband in GTE Pro in 2019 and 2021, triumphs that inevitably didn’t receive the same plaudits or attention as an overall win.
Yet their importance shouldn’t be diminished. That’s very much Calado’s view.
“I always insist that it was just as difficult to win in GTE Pro; those races were so intense,” he reckons. “There was the year in 2019 [in the second of two editions of Le Mans encompassed by the 2018-19 WEC ‘superseason’] when there were 19 cars in class. That one was special.
“The big difference between winning in class and winning overall now in Hypercar is the attention you get afterwards. People start to know who you are. My mum realised I go racing for once after this year!”
That said, Calado acknowledges just how significant – or special, again – this one was.
“It wasn’t just an outright victory in the 100th year of Le Mans, it was Ferrari’s comeback season after half a century away [from the prototype ranks as a factory],” explains the 34-year-old. “It was a new car and the three of us were all new to prototypes. We won it – and it was only the fourth race!”
Source: Autosport