Jose Maria Lopez performed outstanding work in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. With the Toyota GR 10 Hybrid, Pechito managed to finish second despite the inconveniences suffered before and during the traditional French competition. The Cordoban, who shared the driving with Nick DeVries and Kamui Kobayashi He was in charge of the last stretch and fought for the lead. He even led and was able to complete being the escort behind the winners Nicklas Nielsen, Miguel Molina and Antonio Fuocowith the Ferrari 499P. While the other Maranello car completed the podium, driven by James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi.
The event was the fourth date of the World Endurance Championship (WEC for its acronym in English). It is worth remembering that Pechito and his companions started in 23rd place and last in the Hypercar class (the most important), because Kobayashi generated the red flag and neutralization in the classification. Then, in Saturday morning’s Warm Up, with just over an hour to go, De Vries clipped a GT3 class car and damaged the front of the Sport Prototipo.
Already in the race, López and his teammates did a great job and advanced in the peloton. They took advantage of the rain that fell at night to gain positions due to a good stop in the pits.
They placed among the top five, but the problems continued since they did not remove the tearoffs (plastic that covers the windshield) and from fighting for third place they fell to eleventh place. While Kobayashi accused the front tires of breaking and also delayed.
The last shift belonged to Pechito, who did an outstanding job. The native of Río Tercero He came to be first in at least two sections of the race and then remained in the top three. He placed third and crossed the finish line in second position.
It should be noted that since this season the Cordoban is no longer a member of the Toyota Hypercar team and races in the LMGT3 class with a Lexus that did not perform well and in a recent interview with Infobae explained the reasons. Due to injuries in a bicycle accident Mike ConwayLópez replaced him at Le Mans.
Ferrari won again as it did last year in the general classification and after 59 years old repeated his victory in the mother of long-duration races, something that happened in 1965 with Jochen Rindt and Masten Gregory with a 250LM.
While another Argentine accomplished a great job. Is about Nicolas Varrone which also culminated the competition and was in charge of the Oreca 07 of the AF Corse team of the LMP2 class. The young man from Ingeniero Maschwitz shared the wheel with Ben Barnicoat and Francois Perrodo. The Buenos Aires native could have finished fourth, but won the LMP2 ProAm division. The winners in LMP2 were Bijoy Garg, Oliver Jarvis and Nolan Siegelthe replacement of Agustín Canapino in the team Hollinger Racing Juncos in the race of IndyCar at Road America. They drove an Oreca 07 of the team United Autosports.
