Driven to succeed
Ye Yifei's landmark Le Mans win is a title nearly two decades in the making
There was a sense of destiny for Ye Yifei at Le Mans.
At just 14, the boy from Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, arrived alone at the hallowed Circuit de la Sarthe to chase a dream far bigger than himself. Seven years later, he came heartbreakingly close — leading in the final lap of his debut 24 Hours of Le Mans before his car stalled and forced a gut-wrenching retirement.
This summer, though, Ye completed that unfinished lap. On June 15, the eve of his 25th birthday, he stood atop the podium as the first Chinese driver ever to win the famous endurance race, guiding the No 83 Ferrari 499P to a landmark victory with teammates Robert Kubica and Phil Hanson.
For Ye, it wasn't just a win — it was the closing of an 11-year circle, written in speed, heartbreak and redemption on one of motor racing's most legendary tracks.
"The Le Mans circuit means a lot to me," Ye said. "After winning this time, many of my teachers and friends from back when I was 14 sent me messages to congratulate me, which made me really happy."
"A lot of them even came to the track to cheer me on — it felt a little like a home race."
Ye's first brush with speed came at eight years old, in a battered amusement park go-kart in Xi'an. "I was overtaking tourists, feeling the thrill of it all," he recalled. It became an obsession, and with his father's unwavering support, Ye began carving out a path toward professional racing.
By his early teens, he was flying to Shanghai every weekend, leaving his schoolbooks behind in Xi'an. The routine was grueling — Friday night flights, Saturday spent grinding out laps at the track, Sunday evenings back home.
"The first time I trained in Shanghai, I saw how much better the kids there were. The gap felt huge," Ye said.
The humbling quickly turned into hunger. Those early sessions were brutal, but week after week, he closed the gap. Then he began to match them, before finally surpassing them, winning back-to-back national karting titles in 2011 and 2012.
"You could say I 'graduated' from karting in China," he said.
