Ferrari extends Nielsen and Ye, keeping its 499P line-up intact
Ferrari is not just winning Le Mans, it is making sure the drivers who won it stay put. Nicklas Nielsen and Yifei Ye are the latest to sign multi-year extensions.
Ferrari has confirmed new multi-year contracts for two of its 499P Hypercar drivers, Nicklas Nielsen and Yifei Ye. They follow Phil Hanson, extended earlier this month, and together the deals make clear that Ferrari intends to keep its Le Mans-winning squad intact rather than break up a winning team.
Since returning to the top class of endurance racing in 2023, Ferrari has won all three editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans it has contested. Continuity is plainly part of the plan.
Nielsen: a pillar of the programme
Nielsen, a 29-year-old Dane, has been a Ferrari Hypercar driver from day one, sharing the No. 50 499P with Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina, the crew that took Ferrari's first WEC win of the season at COTA. He won the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans, has two more WEC victories, and came up through Ferrari's own ladder, from a Ferrari Challenge title to LMGTE Am honours. He also races an AF Corse 296 GT3 Evo in GT World Challenge Europe. Ferrari's endurance boss Antonello Coletta called him “one of the pillars of our endurance programme,” describing the renewal as “a natural step.” Nielsen said he wants to “keep improving as a driver and to achieve many more race wins.”
Ye: Ferrari's Chinese trailblazer
Ye's extension carries extra significance. The Chinese driver shares the No. 83 AF Corse 499P with Phil Hanson and Robert Shwartzman, and he won the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans, the race that gave Ferrari its second straight overall victory. Coletta highlighted the milestones: Ye is “the first Chinese driver to join the ranks of Ferrari official drivers in endurance racing,” and “the first Chinese winner at Le Mans.” Ye said the win proved “that, with dedication and professionalism, great goals can be reached together.” For Ferrari, keeping the first Chinese Le Mans winner is as much a symbolic and commercial move as a sporting one, given how much every manufacturer wants the Chinese market.
A statement of stability
The pattern is the point. In a matter of weeks Ferrari has re-signed Hanson, Nielsen and Ye, three of the six drivers in its two full-time 499Ps, and it is doing so while the wider WEC is in turmoil off track, with the FIA and ACO fighting over the championship's future. Locking in a proven, Le Mans-winning driver group is exactly what a manufacturer does when it plans to keep fighting for titles, and Ferrari's 2027 evolution package is already testing. The cars are evolving; the people are staying.
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Driver-retention news rarely sets pulses racing, but this matters more than it looks. Ferrari has the most valuable thing a racing programme can own, a winning group that works, and it is refusing to gamble with it. Continuity wins championships in endurance racing, where trust between team-mates across a 24-hour race is worth as much as raw pace, and Ferrari clearly knows it.
The Ye extension is the smart long game. Signing and keeping the first Chinese driver to win Le Mans is a sporting decision with a commercial tailwind, in exactly the market every manufacturer is chasing. Ferrari is not only defending its Le Mans crown on track, it is building the roster to defend it for years, whatever the politics around the championship end up doing.
