HYPEBEAST

Next year will see Ferrari back at Le Mans... is this the car to end 50-plus years of hurt?

-  JOE HOLDING

Picture the scene: northwestern France, summer of '65. England has yet to win the World Cup and the Apollo space programme is still four years shy of the moon, but Ferrari? Ruling the globe even in the face of bloodthirsty competition. And its own hobbled prototypes. You see, everyone expected Ford's six GT40s (including two 7.0-litre monsters) to muller the opposition, but in the event, none of them lasted beyond the sixth hour. And when Ferrari's main challengers followed suit later on, it was the NART entry of Masten Gregory, Jochen Rindt, and (depending on who you believe) reserve driver Ed Hugus that triumphed in a car that had qualified almost 13 seconds off the pace. Staggering.

Anyway, imagine looking Old Man Enzo in the eye and telling him - after a seventh victory in eight years - "Ferrari won't win here again". A ludicrous notion. Absurd. But fast forward to the present day and it remains Ferrari's most recent success. All dynasties die, but few endings have been as sudden and everlasting.

Maranello has decided the clock has ticked long enough, and more than half a century later the shifting landscape has given it a chance to kill the stopwatch at last. Chiefly, the FIA has developed a leading World Endurance Championship class that strikes the right balance between engineering freedom and financial restraint. However, you also suspect that FI's cost cap has left the sport's giants with more excess coins in their equally giant pockets than they really know what to do with. What, you thought Red Bull announced that £5 million track toy on a whim?