Out of the ashes, the pride of Poland takes the top step at Le Mans

Fourteen years ago, Polish motorsport legend Robert Kubica stared down the reality that he'd likely never race competitively again.

Now, after the many twists and turns life has taken since getting back behind the wheel, he's the first driver from his home country to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

"It's a special day," Kubica said, depleted after enduring a grueling final stint to drive the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P to victory in the 2025 edition of Le Mans.

Kubica, together with Ye Yifei and Philip Hanson, drove the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari – the privately-financed, privately-entered yellow car in a trio of fearsome 499Ps – to a victory that was equally expected and unexpected at the same time.

A fanbase of even hardcore sports car racing fans is starting to tire of Ferrari's World Endurance Championship dominance, yet they're largely happy to see the 40-year-old driver climb up to the podium as a Le Mans winner after all he's endured.

Kubica's story is still incredible no matter how many times you recall it. After 76 Formula 1 Grands Prix and one very famous Canadian Grand Prix win in 2008, his right arm was nearly severed in a rallying accident in February 2011. At the time, he had a pre-contract in place to join Scuderia Ferrari for the 2012 F1 season, but the injuries were seemingly career-ending. How appropriate, then, that his Le Mans victory came for the manufacturer he was once destined to drive for until it had been pulled away from him.

There were many detours along the way. He reclaimed his reputation in rallying with a WRC2 title in 2013. He was fast, but too accident-prone to remain at the World Rally Championship's highest level. By the end of 2016 when he ran out of sponsorship to continue in WRC, he was eyeing up a return to circuit racing in sports cars. He even had an agreement to race for the privateer ByKolles Racing Team in 2017, but bailed on them in March to pursue a once-unthinkable F1 comeback.

He proved his point with Williams in 2019 before diverting his career focus back to endurance racing. Kubica won European Le Mans Series titles in 2021 and 2024, won the final World Endurance Championship LMP2 title in 2023, then joined the line-up of AF Corse's yellow No. 83 Ferrari 499P for the 2024 WEC season and won at Circuit of The Americas.

Greeted by Polish flags flying underneath one of the most coveted podiums in the world, Kubica can relish the top step after so much past heartbreak. Jakob Ebrey/Getty Images

A Le Mans win slipped away from Kubica once before.

"I really enjoyed my first Le Mans, although it ended up in probably the most dramatic way, losing the win in the LMP2 category on the last lap," he recalls of the dramatic finish to the 2021 race when his Team WRT ORECA broke down from the lead. "But I really enjoyed it, and felt like a small kid when I was racing in karting. The difference was that I was already 36 years old, and the emotions that weekend gave me were something special."

Now, Le Mans has come back to him, after he and his co-drivers climbed toward the front from 13th on the grid – stretching the virtual energy tank as far as it could go with pace, taking the lead overnight briefly, then for good with less than five hours to go.

Kubica expressed pain in the cockpit of his Ferrari while running the final three and a half hours of the race, at one point feeling as if he was doomed to concede the lead to his factory teammates. But with the same resolve that powered him to defy all the odds since the day his life changed forever, he summoned the willpower to keep pushing, with no mistakes, until he took the checkered flag.

"This one will be emotional, for sure," he said. "Probably now I’m still feeling a bit of tiredness, adrenaline... I’m just looking forward to resting a bit and enjoying it. But yeah, a very special day; I didn’t expect us to do it."

His co-driver Hanson, who joined the No. 83 Ferrari crew this year after the talented Robert Shwartzman was whisked away to the NTT IndyCar Series, could only echo the incredible feeling of victory that may not truly set in until much later.

"The emotions probably haven't really hit yet. Just a lot of relief at the moment from those last few minutes," said the Englishman, who won the LMP2 class in 2020 for United Autosports, and once competed against Kubica and Ye during his successful years in the intermediate class.

"I was actually racing against these two when they broke down on the last lap. I know Le Mans can break your heart at the last possible moment, so I wasn't going to celebrate, or let anything out, until the car physically crossed the line today."

To race at Le Mans after all he's endured was a monumental achievement for Kubica. Now, as a winning driver for Ferrari, his story is one of the best examples motorsport has to offer about the sheer strength of the human spirit.