Benoit Treluyer, Marcel Fassler and Andre Lotterer brought Audi victory in the marathon at the daily ring Sarthe, held under the sign of problems for Toyota and Porsche.

 

For the “Four Rings” this success was already 12th in the last 14 years, and supplemented it with a second place Tom Kristensen, Marc Gene and Lucas Di Grassi.

 

During the race the lead many times passed from hand to hand, and none of the seven crews factory LMP1 could not avoid trouble. The deciding factors, as usual, began to reliability engineering and the ability to avoid trouble.

 

For the second hour marathon brought the first serious accident: it began to rain resulted in several accidents, one of which hit Marco Bonanomi Audi and Toyota Nicolas Lapierre. German machine stopped the race, while Japanese prototype failed after a long struggle to regain repair.

 

Low leadership seized another vehicle Toyota, whose speed rivals did not leave hope. However, at the 15th hour of the race Kazuki Nakajima was forced to stop the car with a failed electrical system.

 

Then the leadership was taken by Audi, but car number 2 stood six laps in the pits when needed to replace the turbine and its “sister”, led by last year’s champion, stopped on the line Myulsan. Tom Christensen managed to get R18 in the pits, where the car also took a long repair supercharger.

 

It seemed that the initiative in the hands of debutants their Porsche. Despite a certain lack of pace, the crew car number 20, even took the lead three hours to finish, and then missed at one of Audi, quite confidently held second.

 

But the final two hours proved fatal for the Stuttgart brand: serious breakdowns of both machines brought them out of the fight. The reason for the vanishing of the second crew was the refusal of the gearbox (car still crossed the finish line after a long renovation, one lap under the chequered flag) on the first team while it is not reported.

 

As a result, the strongest steel Lotterer, Treluye and Fessler – for them it is the third victory in the last four years.

 

Broken in Saturday’s accident Toyota eventually finished third on the podium went Lapierre, Anthony Davidson and Sebastien. Fourth place went to the crew of a private team Rebellion.

 

Subsequent positions challenged representatives of the class LMP2. All night and most of the morning the situation here was absolutely stable, but then the car began to refuse one another. Teams get them back into the race after repairs, and eventually became the strongest representatives Jota Simon Dolan, Harry and Oliver Turvey Tinknell.

 

For a long time they did not even get in the top three, hit by Saturday’s rain, but in the end were able to beat the representatives Thiriet by TDS Tire Pierre, Louis Bad and Tristan Gommendy on Ligier, which kept breaking the front suspension in the morning.

 

Third in LMP2, despite two long repairs were representatives Signatech Alpine.

 

Fighting in the GT category lasted two-thirds of the race: the representatives of Corvette, Porsche, Aston Martin, Ferrari and alternately went ahead.

 

However, representatives of the first two grades behind lost time due to various small troubles, while the first AMR crews and AF Corse at the 16th hour of the race were irreconcilable battle constantly ahead of each other on the track.

 

But the power steering failure in the UK Vantage coupe tipped the scales in favour of Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Tony Wilander and Bruni, repeated his success in 2012.

 

Representatives of the Corvette, much spending the second half of the race, finished behind, ahead of team riders Porsche Manthey, which summed up the hitch on the penultimate pit stop, which cost one position.

 

Aston Martin managed to win in the championship GTE Am, where Tim Nicky, Christian Poulsen and David Haynemayer-Hanssen before the middle distance could create a gap in the range of three closest pursuers – and quietly restrained him to the finish. Even a problem with the power steering on the final segment did not prevent the Danes ahead crews Proton (Porsche) and AF Corse (Ferrari).

Results:

Pos. Car Nº Category Drivers Team Gap Diff Laps Pits
1 2 LMP1 Fässler – Lotterer – Treluyer Audi Sport Team JOEST 24 hours 379 29
2 1 LMP1 Di Grassi – Gené – Kristensen Audi Sport Team JOEST + 3 Laps + 3 Laps 376 32
3 8 LMP1 Davidson – Lapierre – Buemi Toyota Racing + 2 Laps + 5 Laps 374 31
4 12 LMP1 Prost – Heidfeld – Beche Rebellion Racing + 14 Laps + 19 Laps 360 38
5 38 LMP2 Dolan – Tincknell – Turvey Jota Sport + 4 Laps + 23 Laps 356 35
6 46 LMP2 Thiriet – Badey – Gommendy Thiriet by TDS Racing + 1 Lap + 24 Laps 355 35
7 36 LMP2 Chatin – Panciatici – Webb Signatech Alpine + 2:36,427 + 24 Laps 355 33
8 24 LMP2 Rast – Charouz – Capillaire Sebastien Löeb Racing + 1 Lap + 25 Laps 354 35
9 35 LMP2 Brundle – Mardenborough – Shulzhitskiy OAK Racing + 1:47,751 + 25 Laps 354 34
10 43 LMP2 Klien – Hirsch – Brandela Newblood by Morand Racing + 2 Laps + 27 Laps 352 34
11 33 LMP2 Cheng – Tung – Fong OAK Racing – Team Asia + 5 Laps + 32 Laps 347 34
12 34 LMP2 Frey – Mailleux – Lancaster Race Performance + 5 Laps + 37 Laps 342 37
13 51 GTPro Bruni – Vilander – Fisichella AF Corse + 3 Laps + 40 Laps 339 27
14 73 GTPro Magnussen – García – Taylor Corvette Racing + 1 Lap + 41 Laps 338 26
15 92 GTPro Holzer – Makowiecki – Lietz Porsche Team Manthey + 1 Lap + 42 Laps 337 28
16 29 LMP2 Schell – Leutwiler – Roussel Pegasus Racing + 1 Lap + 43 Laps 336 40
17 95 GTE Am Poulsen – Heinemeier-Hansson – Thiim Aston Martin Racing + 2 Laps + 45 Laps 334 25
18 74 GTPro Gavin – Milner – Westbrook Corvette Racing + 1 Lap + 46 Laps 333 27
19 88 GTE Am Ried – Bachler – Al Qubaisi Proton Competition + 1 Lap + 47 Laps 332 25
20 61 GTE Am Companc – Cioci – Venturi AF Corse + 1 Lap + 48 Laps 331 24
21 90 GTE Am Montecalvo – Roda – Ruberti 8 Star Motorsports + 1 Lap + 49 Laps 330 26
22 77 GTE Am Dempsey – Foster – Long Dempsey Racing – Proton + 1 Lap + 50 Laps 329 25
23 42 LMP2 Kimber-Smith – McMurry – Dyson Caterham Racing + 04,355 + 50 Laps 329 33
24 98 GTE Am Dalla Lana – Lamy – Nygaard Aston Martin Racing + 42,976 + 50 Laps 329 24
25 66 GTE Am Turki Alfasail – Neiman – Pumpelly JMW Motorsport + 2 Laps + 52 Laps 327 25
26 70 GTE Am Nakano – Ehret – Rich Team Taisan + 1:40,086 + 52 Laps 327 25
27 58 GTE Am Barthez – Pons – Ayari Team Sofrev ASP + 2 Laps + 54 Laps 325 26
28 57 GTE Am Krohn – Jönsson – Collins Krohn Racing + 1 Lap + 55 Laps 324 25
29 76 GTE Am Narac – Armindo – Hallyday IMSA Performance Matmut + 1 Lap + 56 Laps 323 26
30 53 GTE Am Mowlem – Patterson – Hamilton RAM Racing + 4 Laps + 60 Laps 319 24
31 79 GTE Am MacNeil – Curtis – Bleekemolen Prospeed Competition + 1:16,511 + 60 Laps 319 25
32 67 GTE Am Maris – Merlin – Helary IMSA Performance Matmut + 9 Laps + 69 Laps 310 26
33 97 GTPro Turner – Mücke – Senna Aston Martin Racing + 1 Lap + 70 Laps 309 26
34 91 GTPro Pilet – Bergmeister – Tandy Porsche Team Manthey + 6 Laps + 76 Laps 303 25
35 27 LMP2 Zlobin – Salo – Ladygin SMP Racing + 8 Laps + 84 Laps 295 40
36 62 GTE Am Mallegol – Bachelier – Blank AF Corse + 1 Lap + 85 Laps 294 24
DNF 14 LMP1 Dumas – Jani – Lieb Porsche Team + 1 Lap + 86 Laps 293 27
DNF 20 LMP1 Bernhard – Webber – Hartley Porsche Team + 1 Lap + 87 Laps 292 27
DNF 50 LMP2 Ragues – Taylor – Ihara Larbre Competition + 73 Laps + 160 Laps 219 37
DNF 7 LMP1 Wurz – Sarrazin – Nakajima Toyota Racing + 23 Laps + 183 Laps 196 17
DNF 72 GTE Am Bertolini – Shaitar – Basov SMP Racing + 2 Laps + 185 Laps 194 19
DNF 75 GTE Am Perrodo – Collard – Palttala Prospeed Competition + 54 Laps + 239 Laps 140 22
DNF 52 GTPro Griffin – Parente – Leo RAM Racing + 20 Laps + 259 Laps 120 16
DNF 26 LMP2 Rusinov – Pla – Canal G-Drive Racing + 5 Laps + 264 Laps 115 12
DNF 60 GTE Am Mann – Case – Giammaria AF Corse + 28 Laps + 292 Laps 87 11
DNF 47 LMP2 Howson – Bradley – Imperatori KCMG + 14 Laps + 306 Laps 73 10
DNF 13 LMP1 Kraihamer – Belicchi – Leimer Rebellion Racing + 15 Laps + 321 Laps 58 11
DNF 48 LMP2 Berthon – González – Chandhok Murphy Prototypes + 42 Laps + 363 Laps 16 8
DNF 41 LMP2 Munemann – Latif – Winslow Greaves Motorsport + 6 Laps + 369 Laps 10 5
DNF 71 GTPro Rigon – Calado – Beretta AF Corse + 5 Laps + 374 Laps 5 3
DNF 3 LMP1 Albuquerque – Bonanomi – Jarvis Audi Sport Team JOEST + 4 Laps + 378 Laps 1 2
DNF 81 GTE Am Wyatt – Rugolo – Bird AF Corse + 3 Laps + 381 Laps 7 1
DNF 37 LMP2 Kadygin – Minassian – Mediani SMP Racing + 3 Laps + 384 Laps 6 2
DNF 0 CDNT Ordoñez – Reip – Motoyama Nissan Motorsports Global + 3 Laps + 387 Laps 5 0

 

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