The incredible 90-year record broken by Ferrari at Le Mans

Ferrari made history in 2024 by winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix

It has been 90 years since a single manufacturer took victory at both the Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but in 2024, Scuderia Ferrari has become the first team to do so since Alfa Romeo completed the feat in 1934.

Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix are two of the three races that compose the coveted Triple Crown of Motorsport; taking victory in either event is impressive in and of itself, but creating a race program capable of winning both in the same year is incredibly difficult — and also incredibly impressive. Ferrari’s ability to take on both challenges in 2024 is a great sign for the Scuderia’s racing hopes.

Alfa Romeo: A 1930s success story

The motorsport world was a much different place back in 1934. Formula 1, as a championship, wouldn’t exist for several more decades. World War II had yet to ravage the European continent and dramatically transform the technology utilized in racing. The fastest lap at the Monaco Grand Prix that year was 2m 2s, compared to 2024’s 1m 14s.

Back then, the automakers composing motorsport grids around the world were also quite different, too. Only three car companies — Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, and Maserati — composed the Monaco grid, while the sports car world featured the likes of Alfa Romeo, Riley, Singer, Bugatti, Amilcar, Lagonda, and MG. The world was still recovering from the economic hardships caused by the Great Depression, but 1934 brought with it the first glimmer of hope that the racing scene was recovering.

Alfa Romeo had withdrawn its factory program from racing in 1933 due to that economic hardship, but it still offered support to a little team called Scuderia Ferrari.

See, Enzo Ferrari had gotten his start as a racer himself before he discovered that his talents were better suited to managing a racing team.

Alfa Romeo had hired him to serve as one of its primary motorsport directors, and it still offered some support to the Scuderia despite having resigned from factory competition. Il Commendatore, as Enzo Ferrari was often known, had a keen eye for talent.

Ahead of the 1934 Monaco Grand Prix, Scuderia Ferrari hired a young Algerian racer named Guy Moll to drive the team’s Alfa Romeo Tipo B/P3. Though Moll had gotten his start in Africa, his talent was immediately apparent to many of motorsport’s key personnel at the time, and he performed admirably in various European Grands Prix in the early 1930s.

His skill drew the attention of Enzo Ferrari himself. Moll joined the highly skilled line-up alongside Achille Varzi, Louis Chiron, and Conte Carlo Felice Trossi.

No one was expecting Moll to take victory in his first race with the Scuderia, but that is exactly what he did; in the process, he held the record for being the youngest driver to win a Grand Prix (23 years and 10 months) until Lewis Hamilton broke it in 2008.

Off went the motorsport circus to Le Mans shortly after. Though the field was largely made up of British entries, pundits anticipated that the private entries from Alfa Romeo or Bugatti would come out on top — likely Alfa Romeo, which had been utterly dominant in several of the race’s previous runnings.

By dawn, Alfa Romeo held a lead of over an hour on the competition, and when the checkered flag flew, the Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 MM-LM of Luigi Chinetti and Philippe Étancelin was crowned the winner. It was a truly stunning year for the Ferrari outfit, and for Alfa Romeo as an automaker.

Catch up on Ferrari’s 2024 successes:

Le Mans 24 Hours 2024 results: Full classification as Ferrari take second straight win

Monaco Grand Prix conclusions: Charles Leclerc breakthrough, Kevin Magnussen ban and more

The ever-changing tides of motorsport made it highly unlikely that a similar feat would ever be accomplished again.

As modern race fans know, racing can be hugely expensive, and it can be a huge challenge to develop competitive cars for both open-wheel Grand Prix racing and for long-distance sports car racing. Automakers or teams often select a primary form of competition into which they can pour all of their resources, rather than spread themselves too thin.

After all, just look at Scuderia Ferrari: The team withdrew its works entries from endurance racing in the 1970s, but it remained active in F1 during that time, where its success was more readily guaranteed.

Ferrari slowly returned to sports car racing with a GT program, but it finally returned to the top level of endurance racing last year after a five-decade hiatus.

Its triumphant return at the 100th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was rewarded with a stunning victory. However, in 2023, Ferrari’s F1 program struggled to flourish under the weight of a Red Bull domination.

This year, the Scuderia has been revitalized. As Red Bull Racing struggles to maintain its commanding pace over the competition, both Ferrari and McLaren have stepped up to fight for that top step of the Formula 1 podium.

Carlos Sainz Jr. was able to grab a win at the Australian Grand Prix, but it was Charles Leclerc’s hometown victory at Monaco that launched Ferrari into this particular path of success.

Not only did Leclerc become the first Monegasque driver to win the Monaco GP since Louis Chiron did so in 1931; he also ticked off the first of a one-two punch of Monaco and Le Mans.

At June’s 24-hour race around the Circuit de la Sarthe, AF Corse — Ferrari’s factory endurance racing effort — replicated its 2023 effort with another win, this time for the No. 50 of Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen, and Miguel Molina in one of the most contentious race’s in the track’s history.

Ferrari had looked strong all weekend, but what truly enabled the team to shine was its ability to quickly and effectively respond to the race’s shifting conditions.

The race’s daylight hours were punctuated by short, unpredictable bursts of rain while a safety car neutralized the competition throughout much of the night.

The crew and drivers of the No. 50 Ferrari developed most consistently promising strategies throughout the race, which saw them in the lead as the checkered flag fell after 24 long hours.

Ninety years after Scuderia Ferrari won both Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix with Alfa Romeo, it repeated the feat with its own machines.

For as much as motorsport may change throughout the years, so much of it stays the same.

Read more: Why Cadillac’s Le Mans experience proves it’s absolutely ready for F1