First held in 2014, the 12-hour, Hankook 12H MUGELLO remains the longest motor race to be held annually at the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello, and revived a long-held tradition of endurance racing in the region. Since the Ferrari-owned circuit’s opening in 1974, four 1,000km races and six 6-hour events were held between 1975 and 1984 intermittently as part of the World Sportscar Championship, with two further endurance races – a four-hour and a three-hour – hosted as part of the FIA GT Championship in 1997 and 2006.
Fittingly, the first edition of the Hankook 12H MUGELLO in 2014 was won by a Ferrari, as the 458 GT3 of AF Corse beat the Porsche 997 GT3 R of Stadler Motorsport – the latter that year’s Hankook 24H DUBAI winner – by a scant 5.417 seconds. For close to 10 years, this result remained the closest overall winning margin in 24H SERIES history, and is still an event record to this day!
Perennial 24H SERIES frontrunner – and 2017 Overall GT Teams’ ‘Continents’ champion – Herberth Motorsport made a decisive start by winning its first-ever 24H SERIES race overall on its debut in 2015. Since then, the Bavarian team has taken two more wins – in 2020 and 2021, the former the only time the Hankook 12H MUGELLO closed rather than opened the 24H SERIES European season – and holds the current record for most overall wins at the event with three.
Granted, 2019 Overall GT Teams’ ‘Europe’ champion Scuderia Praha runs Herberth Motorsport close, having taken two consecutive wins in 2017 and 2019 (the event was not held in 2018) with its Ferrari 488 GT3. These, plus AF Corse’s win in 2014, mean Porsche and the Prancing Horse are level-pegging with overall victories at the event with three.
Interestingly, the Hankook 12H MUGELLO has celebrated more than a few maiden winners in the 24H SERIES. Indeed, of the six teams to have won the event outright, FIVE took their first overall series win in the process. The latest addition was Haas RT in 2023, in what was, incredibly, only the Antiguan team’s third EVER race!