Yifei Ye

Born in Xi'an, the capital city of Shaanxi Province, Ye began his professional racing career in karting in 2010 at the age of ten, and would go on to win the China Karting Championship in 2011 and 2012. Ye would make his European racing debut in 2013 at the ROK Cup final in Lonato, finishing fourth overall in the Junior ROK class. His karting career concluded in early 2015 with a second-place finish in the Vega International Winter Trophy, in preparation for his step up to Formula 4.

In 2015, Ye graduated to single-seaters in the French F4 Championship, where two wins near the end of the campaign brought him to twelfth in the standings.

The following year would see Ye return to French F4.^[5] He would go on to dominate the season, taking pole position in nearly every qualifying session and winning fourteen races. His final points tally saw him take the championship title by 142 points over runner-up Gilles Magnus - marking the largest winning margin in championship history, and the first title for a Chinese driver in Formula 4.

In December 2016, it was announced that Ye would graduate to the Formula Renault Eurocup with reigning teams' champions Josef Kaufmann Racing.^[6] He would go on to take three podium finishes on his way to the eighth place in the drivers' standings. Ye reunited with Josef Kaufmann the following season, claiming two wins at Monza and the Hungaroring to finish the championship in third overall.^[7]

Following his performance in the Formula Renault Eurocup, Ye was signed to the Renault Sport Academy in April 2019.

In October 2018, Ye joined the final round of the F3 Asian Championship with Absolute Racing, where he claimed two podiums out of three races. Ye rejoined the outfit for the following year's Winter Series, where he claimed four wins to finish second in the championship.^[8]

2019 saw Ye enter the inaugural season of the FIA Formula 3 Championship with Hitech Grand Prix alongside Leonardo Pulcini and Red Bull junior Jüri Vips.^[9] In the final race in Sochi, he scored his best result of sixth place.

In May 2020, Ye joined CryptoTower Racing in the Euroformula Open championship. He would go on to dominate the championship, taking clean sweeps at the Hungaroring, Red Bull Ring, and Catalunya rounds for a total of 11 wins, 13 poles and 12 fastest laps.^[10]

In April 2023, Ye was announced to participate in the official rookie test at Berlin for the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team in the Porsche 99X Electric. Ye was able to find a good rhythm and managed to provide a valuable feedback to the engineers on the setup of the Porsche 99X Electric.^[11] Additionally, following his successful Berlin rookie test, Ye was set to return to the cockpit of the Porsche 99X Electric for the Rome E-Prix Rookie Free Practice.^[12]

At the start of 2021, Ye made his sportscar racing debut with G-Drive Racing, partnering René Binder and Ferdinand Habsburg in the LMP2 category of the Asian Le Mans Series. Having taken a pair of victories at the opening round and consolidated their championship gap during the final two races, the trio claimed the ALMS title.

For his main campaign, Ye would drive for Team WRT alongside Louis Delétraz and Robert Kubica in the European Le Mans Series.^[13] The team started off in controlling fashion, winning the opening pair of races at Barcelona and Spielberg and gaining an early lead in the standings. After two finishes inside the top five, the Chinese driver and his teammates took victory at Spa-Francorchamps, thus clinching the ELMS championship with a round to go.

In August 2021, Ye joined his ELMS teammates Delétraz and Kubica at Team WRT to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Ye completed the most overtakes in the LMP2 class, with a total of 315 passes, and led the race for much of its concluding phase. However, the car would experience an electrical failure on the very last lap of the race, forcing Ye to retire from the lead and leading to the squad being unclassified in the final results.^[14]

In October 2021, Ye signed with Porsche as Porsche Motorsport Asian Pacific Selected Driver, becoming Porsche's first-ever official Chinese driver in preparation for a potential role in the upcoming Porsche LMDh program.^[15]

Ye returned to the Asian Le Mans Series in the GT3 class for 2022, making his debut in GT racing and fulfilling his duties as a newly signed driver for Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific.^[16] A pole position and a second-place finish in the final round was enough to elevate the team to eighth in the standings.

 

In February 2022, Cool Racing announced its driver line-up for 2022. Reigning European Le Mans Series LMP2 Champion Ye along with the four-time winner in Le Mans Nicolas Lapierre and 2021 European Le Mans Series LMP3 runner up Niklas Krütten. The team also entered the car in the 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans with a revised line-up due to Lapierre's commitments with Alpine in the FIA WEC. He was replaced by double IMSA champion Ricky Taylor. Ye took the pole position at Spa-Francorchamps and three podiums throughout the championship.

In 2023, Ye was announced to be making his debut in the top-flight Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship as the youngest driver in the Hypercar class, partnering António Félix da Costa and Will Stevens in the customer Porsche 963 of Hertz Team Jota.^[17] The team would make an impressive debut at the third championship round at Spa-Francorchamps, finishing sixth.^[18] At the 100th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ye and his teammates would complete an impressive run from last to first during the first half of the race, though this would end after Ye crashed at the Porsche curves.^[19][20] Following repairs, Ye and Jota managed to end up completing the race. In the final three races, the team would amass a trio of top-ten finishes, with a highlight coming in Bahrain, where the trio finished in fourth place.^[21][22]

In lieu of the 2024 season, Ye announced that he would be leaving the Porsche stable, soon revealing that he had signed a factory contract with Ferrari.^[23][24]

^† As Ye was a guest driver, he was ineligible for points.
^* Season still in progress.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate points for the fastest lap of top ten finishers)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2021	Team WRT	Louis Delétraz   Robert Kubica	Oreca 07-Gibson	LMP2	362	NC	NC
2022	Cool Racing	Niklas Krütten   Ricky Taylor	Oreca 07-Gibson	LMP2	367	11th	7th
2023	Hertz Team Jota	António Félix da Costa   Will Stevens	Porsche 963	Hypercar	244	40th	13th
2024	AF Corse	Robert Kubica   Robert Shwartzman	Ferrari 499P	Hypercar	248	DNF	DNF

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

^‡ Ye was entered a guest driver, therefore he was ineligible for points.

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ye Yifei.

• Yifei Ye career summary at DriverDB.com
• Ye Yifei on Weibo
• Yifei Ye on Twitter
• Profile on Euroformula Open Championship