24 Heures du Mans 2025 - Inside the Vanthoors | 2 brothers, 1 passion and a rivalry on the track

If I have to choose between becoming world champion or Le Mans, easy, Le Mans, no doubt. Fair enough, good point. You? Yeah, like I said, for sure Le Mans. Le Mans is the only thing which is missing from my palmarès to make it pretty much perfect for what I dreamed of. If we can win this race, it's going to be the highlight of my career. But it's very tough and the competition is very, very high. Porsche being the most successful brand in Le Mans, the only target is to win the race. It's a 24 hour race, anything can happen. If it's a podium, if it's fighting for a win, we have to win it. Le Mans is the biggest race. I wouldn't call ourselves maybe the absolute favourite, but I think we are there to go for the final chance. So what was your best and worst moment? Like Daytona, we went into the race with literally being one and a half second too slow a lap. And you go into the 24 hour race knowing you have no chance at all. The first year we had Lawrence in one of our cars was 2011. And then from 2012 we did a full season together. And then we won many different championships in the next few years. Lawrence is quite a quiet person. I would say he can be fragile at some stage, but he is a super hard worker. Work ethic is on a very high level. We lost Lawrence end of 2016 because we had nothing else to offer to him than GT3. And he wants to do something different. So he went to Porsche. I think he seems to be happy at Porsche. He had some success. Lawrence had a small brother who was sometimes watching some races with us. We even did a training camp together. And Lawrence asked me if I could take his little brother, which we did. He was super young. He was a bit more than 15. And so we did the first season in I think 2016. And he was sharing a car with Lawrence in endurance. Hypercar, Hyperpole Session 1 underway here in Le Mans. But without the number 6 Porsche after they were disqualified following the Hyperpole qualifying session. The minimum car weight didn't comply with the regulations. And they will have to start at the back of the hypercar grid. First man in the queue under the dunlop is number 15 BMW, Raffaele Marcello. Look at the difference between 4th and 10th. There's only 4 tenths. Huge look up from 15. And that is Raffaele Marcello. He's in 13th place. What is going to happen at the end of this lap? Here they all come. Absolutely all or nothing, isn't it? 13th at the moment. He's coming to the line. Is he going to be in? Is he going to be out? He's in! Yeah! Genuinely, as we head out with 10 cars for 15 minutes. Any money on any car is just a wild guess. Because we've seen so many different performances from the drivers and cars. And again, the same cars, totally different driver on board. So that changes the mix again totally. I think BMW had the pace, but this lap has been absolutely epic from Dries Van Toor. And everyone will be watching this one. Has he got it? Has he got it? How close? Good there. Cadillac or BMW? Cadillac have never started on 4th. And 4th place, a great run from Dries Van Toor. Dries is just a natural thing. He just jumps into it. And when you analyze his laps, they are all different, but they are all quick. Being two different manufacturers, it's a difficult topic to speak about what we are actually doing. Because each team manufacturer has their own secrets. Competing against each other in this big race is something we never thought about. But it's extremely cool and strange and funny at the same time. Because obviously we are brothers and we share everything. But we drive against each other, so we cannot really tell each other everything neither. Or we can after the weekend, let's say. We have some chats together when we see each other. But it's not like we go for a barbecue. Because at 9.30 or something he goes to bed anyway. So that's way too early for me. I was thinking about that we were going out together on cold tires. And then I braked for turn 1 and I went completely straight. I locked both wheels and I went straight. And you just made it with one wheel on the grass. Yeah, let's try and, like we said two years ago, from now. Because we are going to do a lot of races together. Yeah, we have to talk about that. Not be worried about each other but try and help each other. I think everybody who has a brother can relate. It doesn't matter if you are racing a car on a racetrack or you are playing Monopoly at home. You want to beat your brother or your siblings. I think in that moment we both got carried away a bit. And because we knew it was the other, we both didn't want to back off. And it went wrong. For sure it changes our way of, at least my way of approach. I think also his. We had a good conversation after that. And no matter whose fault it was now, more or less. I think we both were equally responsible for taking too much risk in that part of the race. We also spoke about it because it was quite emotional afterwards as well for both of us, what happened. It's going to be cool. I mean, you never know, maybe Daytona or Le Mans will be fighting against each other. As long as you don't drive like an idiot like you did two years ago in the last club, then I'll be happy. I like Le Mans especially as well about the build-up of the week. You really feel the whole paddock. Everyone, engineers, team, drivers, getting more and more tense, more and more serious, ready for the big race. The 50 goes through, sparking away from underneath the under-trail of the BMW. Phil Hansen is right on the back of James Colado. There they are, look, the red Worx car, the semi-Worx independent car, in the hands of Phil Hansen. Behind number 20 of René Rast, losing out to the charging Kevin Estre. So Estre now breaks into eighth place. Eighth from 21st on the hypercar grid. We are running to plan I would say. At the moment everything is quite ok. Of course difficult to chase the Ferrari. I think it's at the moment a bit too quick for us. Let's see later in the race. Actually the slightest mistake is costing, so we have to avoid all of them. Number 6 out of hold, so that's Laurence Van Toor. Now you hand it over to the pit crew. Now they have to do their job. Who's the fastest in the pits here between Ferrari versus Porsche? Porsche beating Ferrari in the pit stops. That's exactly what we were looking for. What a turnaround. Now this car you're looking at, it is the on the road leader right now. Matt Campbell, now this is in second place, 28 seconds back from leading Ferrari and lapped about a second and a half slower last time around. So again this is heading for a pit stop. I personally do like to drive at night. I enjoy it. It's a nice thing. You see all the fans outside having a barbecue. You smell it as well when you drive and you see them having a nice time while you are trying to go as fast as you can. And this is what makes 24 hour racing different from anything else. It is racing in darkness and this is not a modern racetrack with lots of lighting. There are a lot of dark pools once you leave the pit lane area. Of course with the track being colder, air temps being colder, the car will probably go faster. So most of the accidents also always happen at night because you get tired and the mistake is easily made because you don't have the same points of reference compared to daylight. And also when you try to pass other slower cars, they sometimes don't see you and they turn in and then it can be finished. I learned now that I have to be more calm and view it on a different opinion. Which I'll try. Let's see how long it lasts. That's my lesson. From the beginning onwards we knew we didn't have the speed of the Ferrari and the Porsche but we just tried to do a clean race and stay out of mistakes. This already normally always brings you very far. My pace I think was pretty strong considering the pace that we could bring. There and straight off and does he manage to get it through the gravel trap, the 15? I think he does. It could have been significantly worse for Dries Van Toor. He's pushing on or trying to. Number 6 Porsche up to third. It's all squirrelly going through the dark S's. Yeah that Porsche just needs a bit of a leg up. It's almost there. It's almost part of the lead battle but not quite. It's not good enough now. Kubica back in the 83 car. And there is the alternator issue perhaps again. 415 BMW back in the box. The problems are serious. I think an issue on the hybrid side but they have to investigate properly what happened and how it happened. But yeah, it's unfortunate. I think it's cool to have two brothers there and two brothers fighting for victory in Le Mans. I think it's quite unique as well. But I'll be looking how you're doing and obviously be happy for you but for me, I want to win. Here's Antonio Giovinazzi. The 51 Ferrari into the pits from second place. And the team under real pressure here. They're going to have to work fast. The number 6 Porsche is coming strong. Is the Ferrari going to be in front? Giovinazzi is out. No! The Porsche takes second place. From drivers, engineers, no offs, no contact, no penalties. And this was absolutely the maximum we could achieve but it still hurts to be second. I still kind of feel that obviously standing here in the world's probably biggest endurance race or biggest race in general. Standing on this podium is an honour. Third year in a row, the prancing horse will top the podium at Le Mans. 51 broke a long drought in 2023. 51 last year and the 83 AF Corsa Ferrari wins Le Mans 2025. 15 seconds at the line ahead of Kevin Est's Porsche. So that is already one of your goals for next year? Yeah, to win Le Mans.