On beauty or did Ferrari 499P's looks play a role in its victory at Le Mans?
June 2023
Last changed August 2023
Le Mans 2023, the so-called centenary edition of the 24-hours race (the 91st event, taking place on the 100th anniversary of the first one). I do not really follow any motor sport, but I was curious to see if the Toyota GR010 would make it six victories in a row in this endurance event. So I tuned leisurely into the qualifiers … and was promptly hypnotized by the two Hypercar class cars in red. I am not a Ferrari fanboy but, oh, those elegant lines. No wheel arches bulging like mountains in Guilin as on the LMP2 cars, no vertical headlights, a sleek dome, elegant and long. As badass as the 1989 Batmobile, meaner than the APC in Aliens, a presence that is sure to have a stay in thoughts of many an automotive enthusiast. The fins connecting to the back wing look as if taken straight from a comic book - and this is in no way demanded by aerodynamics or rules. The Peugeot Hypercars made do completely devoid of a rear wing and with an apparently smaller centerline fin but were nonetheless just as effective, with one of them running in 1st position several hours into the race. Therefore the spread of options available to the designers on how to style the fin and still achieve the wanted aerodynamic result must clearly be ample enough and yet the Toyota Hypercar carries a shark fin as level as a ruler, the Porsche car manages some more sporty appeal, but the Ferraris, they opt for the eye catcher option. Why do car designers go to great lengths to give their creations allure, elegance, perhaps timelessness? Is beauty a bonus, an additional gear?
Growing up in a socialist country in the eighties, my taste for cars was modeled by a vehicle landscape that reeked of rudimentary, squarish, unassuming. Parking lots were sparsely littered predominantly with Yugoslav Zastava cars and a set or Eastern bloc mainstays, like Skodas from the then Czechoslovakia, Russian Lada and Moskvich cars, Trabant and Wartburg from East Germany, Polonez from Poland, some Simcas, Talbots, and a number of models that were built in Yugoslavia by license from VW, Renault, Citroen and Fiat. Everything was not gray of course, the Skodas tended to be green or yellow or orange, some even had rear spoilers, and there was the occasional sporty Fiat X1/9, or the BMW of a guest worker - Gastarbeiters, as they were called - who brought the car back home from West Germany, but the everyday reality of the masses was kind of dull and not exciting. The early nineties determinedly blew this past into history, like a youthful spring wind cleaning the last leaves of past autumn from sight. In my memory the first import cars that came to be adopted en masse were Hondas (mainly civic) and Mazdas (mainly 323). I was sort of fresh from getting my driver's license and took for a ride in my Yugo (yes, that Yugo). Before a crossroad, my brain took notice of a shiny object passing by in my peripheral vision, a Honda Prelude, 1991 model, the first time I saw it outside of an automotive magazine. I remember being struck open-mouthed by that never-ending, perfectly curved bonnet, the lights with just the proper proportions and placed in just the manner that the total is effortlessly pleasing to the eye -- Whoa! - Screeech - Boom! I hit the back of a car whose driver correctly stopped due to traffic conditions. Nothing serious, the front bumper was dented, the radiator bent but interestingly enough didn't leak. Never repaired it, the car served me well for the couple-odd years I kept it.
Some twenty-five years later, starting my commute home, tired and half absent after a days work, the lookout in my brain again pointed out some object on the port side that must clearly be something that screams of attractive. And it was - a Lexus LC coupe. Man, again that never-ending perfectly shaped bonnet, the lights that command and guide the gaze - hey, hey! Cool it dude, eyes on the road, don't want to repeat that stupid mishap. Nothing new, I won't offer resistance before admitting that men can be quick to fall back to the simple and basic register - some curves, some beer and we're cool.
To any car enthusiast, the sight of a spectacular car, say a Ford GT40, or a memorable one like the Magnum P.I.'s Ferrari 308, or a timeless favorite like a Countach or a Charger, brings delight. Maybe it's the stories wound around them, sometimes it is their sheer beauty, sometimes the strong aura or maybe the grateful appreciation of the fact that you are witnessing an object that required intense levels of mastery and devotion to fathom and bring to life. Totally unrelated, except for the otherworldly beauty angle of it, I remember when I saw Michelangelo's Moses in Rome. So utterly divine that reality humbly steps aside and will meet you again outside the basilica where the statue is housed. Anyway, once something stunningly beautiful hits the stage, it is easy to root for it. The commentators of the Hyperpole were speculating that due to the two Ferrari Hypercar entries taking 1st and 2nd spots in qualifications an additional 30k fans would show up on race day. Obviously this not solely due to the cars' looks, but to the accumulated heritage of this famed constructor and to the audacity of the task they ventured to complete - to win at Le Mans in their first go after 50 years of absence. But it was probably Toyota who was under more pressure - they had everything to lose, while Ferrari had everything to gain. And they pulled it off with grace and won deservedly, I believe with the invisible aid of fan support and enthusiasm spurred by the electrifying beauty of these race cars from la Scuderia Ferrari.
I was rooting for the Japanese team and hoped till the end (or till the brake lockup moment 1h to the chequered flag) that the number 8 Toyota would manage to turn the situation around, but the presence, the magic, the whole package of the 499P cars (what was that electric whizz that could be heard only when a Ferrari was decelerating before a corner?) made my heart take side also for these race distance-devouring creations in red.
Ivo Makuc, 2023
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