Dramatic Le Mans Victory for Porsche

Marc Lieb, Neel Jani, and Romain Dumas achieved a dramatic victory for Porsche Team at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. With five minutes remaining, it looked like Toyota would achieve its first Le Mans victory before the race-leading Toyota lost power on the penultimate lap.

The victory battle was between the two Toyota Gazoo Racing cars and one Porsche Team car. The first six hours were dominated by the No. 6 Toyota and the No. 1 Porsche. Yet a mechanical failure cost the No. 1 Porsche the victory chance during the night. Once the race entered its final six hours, the top three was the No. 5 and No. 6 Toyotas and the No. 2 Porsche, all within only 40 seconds.

The No. 6 Toyota was the first to fall from the victory contention. Early in 21^st hour, Kamui Kobayashi in the No. 6 was charging the second-placed No. 2 Porsche when he spun at the exit of the Michelin Curves and lost almost half a minute. A bigger setback happened an hour later when the car with bodywork damage spent 10 minutes in the garage for repairs, losing three laps.

That left the leading No. 5 Toyota and the No. 2 Porsche as the only cars on lead lap. Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima at the wheel of the leading Toyota were maintaining a lead of about half a minute to Marc Lieb and Neel Jani in the second-placed Porsche. A slow puncture for the second-placed Porsche gave the leading Toyota a lead of over a minute for the last ten minutes.

Then came the heartbreak for Toyota. With Le Mans participation dating back to the 1980s, Kazuki Nakajima was driving the No. 6 towards Toyota’s first victory at Le Mans. Then five minutes before the checkered flag, the car started losing power and halted after the start-finish line with the No. 2 Porsche passing it to start the final lap.

What looked like Toyota’s first Le Mans victory became Porsche’s 18^th Le Mans victory. The No. 2 Porsche 919 Hybrid was driven by Marc Lieb, Neel Jani, and Romain Dumas, of which only Dumas had previously won at Le Mans. The No. 5 Toyota failed to complete the final lap within six minutes and was not classified, thus the No. 6 Toyota with Mike Conway, Stéphane Sarrazin, and Kamui Kobayashi was second, three laps behind the winner car. Audi had a difficult Le Mans this year; yet still the No. 8 Audi Sport Team Joest entry finished in third place, though 12 laps down.

The No. 12 Rebellion Racing car was the only privateer LMP1 entry taking the checkered flag, yet it finished 29^th overall and 54 laps behind the winner car.

Victorious Le Mans comeback for Ford

Ford Chip Ganassi Racing won the GTE-Pro class in the brand-new Ford GT’s first appearance at Le Mans. The victory came 50 years after Ford’s first Le Mans overall victory in 1966 with the Ford GT40 Mk.II.

The No. 82 Risi Competizione Ferrari had claimed the GTE-Pro lead in the early morning hours. The No. 68 Ford GT was running in second place when the race entered its final six hours, despite having served a drive-through penalty for engine running during refueling.

In the 20^th hour, Matteo Malucelli in the Risi Ferrari was overtaken by Joey Hand in the No. 68 Ford for the lead. After Malucelli’s stint, Toni Vilander took over the Ferrari. Vilander was running faster than Hand and reducing the gap to lead to under five seconds before he spun at the exit of the Michelin Curves. Vilander lost 40 seconds because of the spin and could not anymore get close to the No. 68 Ford during his stint.

With just over two hours to go, Vilander handed the second-placed Risi Ferrari to Giancarlo Fisichella while Hand handed the GTE-Pro leading Ford GT to Dirk Müller for the final stints. Fisichella was unable to catch Müller; the Ford driver instead extended the winning margin to one minute. Thus Ford could celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the first Le Mans victory with Müller, Hand, and Sébastien Bourdais winning the GTE-Pro class in a Ford GT.

The strong effort of Ford Chip Ganassi Racing was completed by the No. 69 Ford GT in third place, 1 minute, 24 seconds behind the winning car, and the No. 66 Ford GT in fourth place, one lap down.

Signatech Alpine and Scuderia Corsa winners in Pro-Am classes

Nicolas Lapierre, Stéphane Richelmi, and Gustavo Menezes of Signatech Alpine dominated the LMP2 class since the night and the Alpine-badged Oreca-Nissan of the team won with a dominant margin of two minutes, 40 seconds. René Rast, Will Stevens, and Roman Rusinov finished in second place for the No. 26 G-Drive Racing entry, also using an Oreca-Nissan car.

The No. 37 SMP Racing entry with its BR01-Nissan car was the best non-Oreca in third place, already five laps behind the winner.

In GTE-Am, the Ferrari 458 Italia of Scuderia Corsa led most of the second half of the race. The team’s drivers Townsend Bell, Bill Sweedler, and Jeff Segal won the race by one lap to François Perrodo, Emmanuel Collard, and Rui Aguas of the No. 83 AF Corse entry, also using a Ferrari 458 Italia. The No. 88 Porsche of Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing completed the GTE-Am podium.

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