Manthey 1st Phorm’s run to fourth from 17th on the grid to secure the 2025 LMGT3 Teams’ and Drivers’ championships in the 8 Hours of Bahrain was a stunning performance which shouldn’t be overlooked.
The longstanding German Porsche outfit, based in the Eifel region, has been the class of the LMGT3 field since the category’s debut at the start of last season, collecting a sweep of titles in both WEC seasons and a pair of wins at the Le Mans 24 Hours. But while the roll of honour suggests firm dominance and a stroll in the park, the 2025 campaign for Richard Lietz, Ryan Hardwick and Riccardo Pera was anything but.
The two wins at Imola and Le Mans stood out, but it was the crew’s ability to finish in the points at every race after a disappointing start to the season in Qatar that made the difference.
“This championship, and along with winning Le Mans, is definitely the highlight of my driving career and also my life,” Hardwick, who also has ELMS GTE title-winning success and a Jet-Ski World Championship amongst the items on his diverse sporting CV, said post-race.
“I mean, like all drivers, my story is I spent most of my life racing other things and building businesses, but it’s my life’s work to lead me to this point. You know, with this team this year, I have the opportunity to drive with these guys. It’s a dream come true to be racing in the world championship in a Porsche, racing against the Ferrari for most of the season, which, to me, is just like you can’t write it any better.
“And it comes down to the final race, and we were battling all the way to the end, and finishing within one position of each other. So we had great competition all year. I wouldn’t want to have it any other way. Wouldn’t want to do it with any other team, wouldn’t want to do it with any other co-drivers.”
Hardwick took pride in the team’s ability to overcome the odds to take the title, after Manthey ended Friday’s qualifying session languishing at the back of the LMGT3 category.
“I’ll tell you the truth,” he explained. “This team hasn’t had our backs against the wall like that the entire season. I mean, we didn’t lack confidence, but we did have this belief. I didn’t know how we would do it, but I believed somehow, some way, that our engineers would figure the car out and get it turned around. And sure enough, they did.”
The American climbed into the top five during his opening triple stint, passing both of his title rivals in the process. Pera and Lietz then kept the car near the front for the remainder of the eight-hour event, running as high as second, as neither the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3 or #81 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R could find a way back through to threaten the Porsche crew’s champion-elect status.
Both Hardwick and Pera had a first WEC title to celebrate at the end-of-season Awards Ceremony on the beach in Bahrain, while Lietz reflected on a second. The final push captured the 41-year-old Austrian’s first title in a decade, following on from his success with Porsche’s factory GTE Pro team in 2015, adding to a stellar career with the iconic brand.
It was the Porsche factory driver who was behind the wheel for a nerve-wracking final stint, as a late race Safety Car closed up the LMGT3 field and opened the door to a late comeback from Vista AF Corse’s Alessio Rovera.
“I asked for a boring race,” Lietz said after the chequered flag. “It wasn’t boring at the end, unfortunately. We lost a bit of the lead we had built up during the first seven hours.
“We had to push from the beginning [on the restart], and maybe I pushed the tyres a bit too much, so it was quite difficult. On the other hand, we had one car in front which was lapped, some cars with some fresh tyres and very fast lap times in the rear and not fighting for the championship. So I had a lot of radio conversations with the team, where they told me, ‘push, but no risk’. Then at the end, I asked for radio silence, so I can concentrate.
“Sometimes, Hypercars were just surprisingly slow in slow-speed corners, and then you have them with fresh tyres really fast. So I’m sure it was difficult for them to manage the traffic. But definitely, as usual, we had a small contact. We had some situations where I tried to avoid contact because it was risk management at the end. But it was definitely more exciting at the end than I hoped.”
Manthey’s success for Porsche served as a tonic on a tough night for its Hypercar efforts operated by Penske and Proton, which ended on a low note. All three 963s failed to finish in the top 10, and the factory cars missed out on the titles as a result in Porsche Penske Motorsport’s final WEC start.
“This success story in the LMGT3 category is hard to beat: two class wins at Le Mans and the championship titles in LMGT3 are no small achievement,” emphasised Sebastian Golz, Project Manager Porsche 911 GT3 R.
“The teams at Manthey in Meuspath and at Porsche Motorsport in Weissach can be proud of the foundation they have built and the results they have fought for on track.”
