Alert! It’s Ferrari’s new Le Mans Hypercar (in the dark)

Ferrari is being very coy about its new Le Mans Hypercar competitor, but at least we’ve now got the very dimly-lit image above to get us excited for its long-awaited return to the top class of endurance racing. So now you know what it’ll look like racing at night..

The shadowy picture was shared on Ferrari’s Instagram and shows a mean-looking light signature and an ankle-chopping front splitter. There’s no info to go with it, but of course we already know that Ferrari has chosen to build a car to the new do-it-all-yourself LMH rules (as Peugeot, Toyota and Glickenhaus have done) rather than going down the shared-chassis LMDh route à la Audi, Porsche, Acura, Alpine and Lamborghini.

“We chose to come back into LMH because when Ferrari races it needs to make the whole car. We decided on the category because this way we make the chassis, the combustion engine, the electric power, the gearbox – everything,” Ferrari’s head of competizioni GT and the big boss of the Hypercar project Antonello Coletta told TopGear.com ahead of this year’s race.

“As you know the category includes LMDh, but for us it’s important to make all of the car. It’s more complicated than LMDh (where manufacturers can use a chassis supplied by Dallara, Ligier, Multimatic or Oreca with their own powertrain), but for us as a manufacturer it’s better to compete in a free situation.

“We are confident that the Hypercar will be very strong. Our dream is to win. If the target is not to win then it would be stupid to put the car on the track.”

Fighting talk. When it makes its debut in 2023, the as-yet unnamed Hypercar will represent the first time Ferrari has competed in the top class of endurance racing for exactly 50 years. It’ll also arrive in the same year as Ferrari introduces the new 296 GT3, which has a fair old job on its hands to replace the mightily successful 488 GT3.

Brit driver James Calado has won his class twice at Le Mans in that very 488, and he gave TG a quick insight into the joint development programme that’s currently ongoing: “We’re all involved as a team. Antonella’s got all of his drivers to play a part. A few drivers are playing a bigger part – I won’t say any names.

“But we’ve been developing the Hypercar for a long time now in the simulator and the GT3 is another new project so we’ve been super busy.

“There is a chance I might drive the Hypercar… a chance.”

Coletta also told TG: “The time that we have to develop the car is very little. In January we will have the Daytona race for the GT3 and in March probably the first race of the World Endurance Championship with the Hypercar.”

Watch this space...