The 83rd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans has been won by the impressive Porsche squad in the #19 Porsche 919 Hybrid with F1 driver Nico Hulkenberg at the wheel who lead home a 1-2 with the #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Brendon Hartley. The victory marked Porsche’s 17th overall win at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
On the stroke of the 24th hour the #19 Porsche 919 Hybrid completed a total of 395 laps, with the sister #17 car finishing in second place, while the #7 Audi R18 e-tron Quattro of Benoit Treluyer took the final podium position. With the race normally claiming a large number of the field it has been a fairly quite race with only the two Nissan GT-R LM Nismo’s of Jann Mardenborough (#23) and Tsugio Matsuda (#21) failing to make it to the end of the 24 hours.
In LMP2 the #47 KCMG Oreca 05 finished at the top of the pile having endured most of the race at the top of the standings. The final part of the race saw a valiant effort from the 2014 winning JOTA Sport team as they pushed forward to finish in second place ahead of the #26 G-Drive Racing Ligier JS P2 – Nissan.
Credit: Richard Prince for Chevy Racing
The #64 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7R built up a 4 lap lead in the closing stages of the race, this will be hugely welcome at the team that could only run one car due to a heavy crash in qualifying in the sister #63 car. The AF corse Ferrari squad were there to pick up the pieces to bring home the #71 Ferrari 458 Italia ahead of the #51 Ferrari 458.
Credit: Ferrari
It was heartbreak for the LM GTE Am #98 Aston Martin squad, having dominated a large part of the race and sitting comfortably with a two lap lead, it was all over when something broke on the Aston Martin Vantage V8, sending Paul Dalla Lana spearing in to the wall at the Ford Chicane. The front of the car was completely smashed and despite his best efforts Dalla Lana was stranded.
With the class leaders out it was down to the SMP Racing team to bring home their #72 Ferrari 458 Italia for the victory with the Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 finishing second ahead of the #62 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 Italia.
Top 3 positions in each class after Hour 24 of the 83rd 24 Hours of Le Mans
LMP1
- #19 Porsche 919 Hybrid – Hulkenberg/Bamber/Tandy
- #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid – Bernhard/Webber/Hartley
- #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro – Lotterer/Fassler/Treluyer
LMP2
- #47 KCMG Oreca 05 – Howson/Lapierre/Bradley
- #38 Jota Sport Gibson 015S – Nissan – Dolan/Evans/Turvey
- #26 G-Drive Racing Ligier JS P2 –Bird/Rusinov/Canal
LM GTE-Pro
- #64 Corvette Racing – Milner/Gavin/Taylor
- #71 AF Corse – Calado/Beretta/Rigon
- #51 AF Corse – Vilander/Bruni/Fisichella
LM GTE-Am
- #72 SMP Racing Ferrari 458 Italia – Shaytar/Bertolini/Basov
- #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 991 – Long/Dempsey/Seefried
- #62 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 Italia – Sweedler/Bell/Segal
Keep a look out over the next few days as theCheckeredFlag.co.uk will be covering all of the reaction and fall out from the race including a full class-by-class race report over the next week.
