Nickas Nielsen, Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina took the checkered flag in the #50 Ferrari 499P with a margin of 14 seconds over the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID of Nyck de Vries, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López – which had been called in urgently. due to an injury to Mike Conway -, while the #51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi completed the podium.
There was drama in the penultimate hour when the right door of the #50 Ferrari began to shake rapidly, prompting race control to display a black and orange flag. Nielsen was forced to pit the car just six laps into the stint, but was able to maintain the net lead over the #7 Toyota.
Nielsen’s race to the finish was facilitated by a spin by López at the Dunlop corner in wet track conditions, a mistake that ended any chance of Toyota taking another victory at Le Mans.
#50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Nicklas Nielsen celebrates victory
Ferrari was quick from the start at the 92nd edition of Le Mans, with all three 499Ps – including the AF Corse customer – taking the lead in the first hour.
Factory car #50 and customer #83 decided to stay on track when rain briefly appeared on Saturday afternoon, a decision that put the two 499Ps well ahead of the rest of the field, as the rest of cars, including the #51 Ferrari, had to return to the pits to change to slick tires.
The race was neutralized for the first time after nightfall in La Sarthe, when the #20 BMW of Robin Frijns crashed at the end of Mulsanne after coming into contact with the #83 Ferrari then driven by Robert Kubica.
It took the stewards almost two hours to replace the barriers and the action resumed after midnight. Another safety car period occurred in the early morning hours as rain and fog made the track unsafe for racing, with Toyota, Porsche and Ferrari exchanging the lead up to that point.
It wasn’t until dawn that the race turned green again, and the look of the race changed almost hourly as various manufacturers moved into the lead.
The #50 Ferrari made good progress in the 18th hour, before the final downpour, and Fuoco overtook the #83 Ferrari and the #5 Porsche of Frederic Makowiecki for second, when an out-of-sync #2 Cadillac stopped to change to wet tires.
Alessandro Pier Guidi managed to hold on to the final podium spot in the #51 Ferrari he shared with James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi despite coming under serious pressure from the #6 Porsche 963 driven by Laurens Vanthoor.
Pier Guidi was penalized five seconds for colliding with the #8 Toyota of Brendon Hartley in the penultimate hour, an incident that left Hartley on the wrong side of the track at the Mulsanne corner.
Pre-race favorite Porsche had to settle for fourth, with Vanthoor finishing just 1.1s behind Pier Guidi in the #6 963 LMDh he shared with Kevin Estre and Andre Lotterer.
The #6 Porsche had taken the lead in the 18th hour after entering the pits through a slow zone, ironically caused by Felipe Nasr’s accident with his #4 brother in Indianapolis. However, the #6 had to make its next pit stop under a safety car – caused by the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 leaving the track at the same corner – which caused the trio to drop down the order.
#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 – Hybrid: Sebastien Buemi
Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt
The #8 Toyota, delayed by the incident with Pier Guidi, finished fifth, with Sébastien Buemi taking the car he shares with Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa to the finish line ahead of the #5 Porsche of Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen and Frederic Makowiecki.
Cadillac emerged as a surprising contender for victory on Sunday afternoon, as a timely pit stop before the final safety car put the #2 V-Series.R of Alex Lynn, Earl Bamber and Alex Palou in the lead, although out of sync on pit stops with his immediate rivals.
However, any advantage the Chip Ganassi-led works team could gain from its pit strategy was negated when rain made an appearance on the track in the final three hours, putting all Hypercars on wet tires. or less at the same time.
Palou, a two-time IndyCar champion, took the #2 Cadillac to seventh overall, ahead of the two Jota Porsche customers.
The #12 Porsche Jota, which was rebuilt with a new chassis in record time after a crash in Wednesday’s FP2, finished eighth ahead of the #38 car.
Peugeot once again struggled with the new 2024 9X8 which made its debut at the Imola round of the World Endurance Championship, with the car struggling for pace in all conditions.
Stoffel Vandoorne, Paul di Resta and Loic Duval finished 11th in the better of the French manufacturer’s two factory cars, after receiving a drive through penalty for overtaking in a safe area.
The #93 car also had to go through the pitlane after Mikel Jensen was deemed responsible for a collision with the #95 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 car. That, combined with a crash by Nico Muller under the safety car, left him, Jensen and Jean-Eric Vergne in 12th place in the final count, one lap behind the sister car.
Lamborghini was the best of the newcomers to the Hypercar category following a solid, if unremarkable, run by the Iron Lynx-led factory squad at Le Mans. The Italian brand never had the necessary pace to upset its more established factory rivals, but its two SC63s ran without major setbacks, except for a couple of spins in the fourth hour.
The #63 Lamborghini entered for the full WEC season finished ahead of the Peugeot in 10th position with Mirko Bortolotti, Daniil Kvyat and Edoardo Mortara, while the sister car #19 brought from IMSA and driven by Romain Grosjean, Andrea Caldarelli and Matteo Cairoli finished in 13th position.
Isotta Fraschini was the only other new manufacturer to qualify, after Jean-Karl Carl Wattana Bennett and Antonio Serravalle managed to push the Tipo6-C #11 to 14th place.
Both BMW and Alpine were out of the race before midnight on Saturday, despite showing promising pace early in the race.
Engine failures were to blame for Alpine’s double retirement at Le Mans, with Ferdinand Habsburg parking the #35 A424 LMDh at Arnage in the fifth hour and Nicolas Lapierre taking the sister car to the garage shortly afterwards.
BMW’s problems began in the first hour, when Marco Wittmann went off at Esses and immediately put the #15 M Hybrid V8 in a difficult situation. His teammate Dries Vanthoor was trying to recover from this setback when he collided with Kubica’s #83 AF Corse Ferrari at the end of Mulsanne in the evening, and the impact sent him face-first into the crash barriers.
By this time, the #20 BMW was already in the garage after Robin Frijns ran over the curbs at the Ford chicane and suffered what appeared to be terminal damage. BMW was finally able to repair the car to get teammate Sheldon van der Linde back on track in the final hour, but the car failed to qualify after failing to complete the required 70% distance.
The #83 customer Ferrari, which led much of the race on Saturday and was in the fight early in the afternoon, ended up retiring due to technical problems in the 20th hour, with television images showing plumes of smoke rising from the side. lead.
The #3 Cadillac and #4 Porsche were among the six Hypercars that did not qualify.
United takes an improbable victory in LMP2
#22 United Autosports Oreca 07 Gibson: Oliver Jarvis, Bijoy Garg, Nolan Siegel
Photo by: Shameem Fahath
LMP2 honors went to the #22 United Autosports ORECA of Oliver Jarvis, Bijoy Garg and Nolan Siegel, with Siegel taking the lead from Gurus’ #28 IDEC Sport driver Reshad at the 22nd hour.
Team IDEC Sport and the #34 InterEuropol Oreca had previously enjoyed a long battle on Sunday, with the #10 Vector also in play in the afternoon before rain once again shook up the order in LMP2.
Finally, it was the InterEuropol team, winner of last year’s race, that took second place with Clemen Novalak, Jakub Smieschowski and Vladislav Lomko, while the IDEC Sport trio of Gurus, Job Van Uitert fell to third place of the class.
A late exit from the track by the Vector ORECA #10 contributed to Patrick Pilet, Ryan Cullen and Stéphane Richelmi falling to fifth position behind the AF Corse #183 of François Perrodo, Ben Barnicoat and the Argentine Nicolas Varrone who had led at the dawn of the Sunday.
Porsche triumphs in the new LMGT3 class for 2024
#91 Manthey Ema Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3: Yasser Shahin, Morris Schuring, Richard Lietz
Photo by: Marc Fleury
Porsche achieved a new victory in the WEC in the LMGT3 category with Richard Lietz, Yasser Shahin and Morris Schuring at the controls of the 911 GT3 R # 91 of Manthey EMA.
Victory in the production class came down to a straight fight between the Manthey Porsche and the #31 WRT of Augusto Farfus, Sean Gelael and Darren Leung in the closing stages, as several of the top contenders dropped out due to various reasons.
Gelael managed to take over the race lead when the rain returned to the track with just over two hours remaining, but Porsche factory driver Lietz didn’t have much trouble overtaking his silver class rival in the race to Indianapolis to lead the #91 crew to the first-ever LMGT3 victory at Le Mans.
The #92 Manthey PureRxcing brother was also in the battle for the win for much of the enduro and was actually leading the class when Klaus Bachler was forced to take the car to the garage due to electrical problems.
Proton Competition took third and fourth places with its pair of Ford Mustang GT3s, the #88 of Dennis Olsen, Giorgio Roda and Mikkel Pedersen, which finished ahead of Christopher Mies, Ben Tuck and John Hartshorne in the sister car.
All three McLaren 720S GT3s, including the pole-winning Inception Racing car, suffered a series of problems on Sunday that took them out of the competition.
