Le Mans 24h: Alonso, Buemi, Nakajima win again for Toyota
Toyota sealed its second Le Mans 24 Hours victory in expectedly dominant style, but a late problem for the #7 car handed another win to Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima.
Podium: Race winner #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso
Alexander Trienitz
The #7 TS050 Hybrid looked to have an edge over the sister car - and Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez looked well set for a straightforward victory over the #8 car until drama struck the trio with just over an hour of the race remaining.
Lopez had more than two minutes in hand when he pitted to replace a suspected front-right puncture, but it was in fact the left-rear that needed changing, forcing the Argentinian to limp back to the pits. He resumed 50s down on Nakajima in the #8 car once the issue was solved.
After assuming the lead when Nakajima made his final routine stop, Lopez pitted for the final time with 20 minutes to go and took the flag only 16s in arrears.
Victory for Alonso, Nakajima and Buemi also guaranteed them FIA World Endurance Championship honours, with Buemi earning that accolade for the second time after his 2014 triumph.
The best of the non-hybrid LMP1s dropped off the lead lap early in hour five, and by the finish the third-placed car, SMP Racing's #11 BR Engineering BR1, was six laps down on the winning car.
Le Mans debutant Stoffel Vandoorne and his teammates in the #11 car, Mikhail Aleshin and Vitaly Petrov, enjoyed a virtually-trouble free run to ensure SMP came out on top against its main rival Rebellion Racing, which suffered dramas with both of its R-13s.
The #3 survived a crash for Thomas Laurent in the evening without losing a lap, thanks to rapid pitwork and a well-timed safety car, but Gustavo Menezes was less fortunate when he got the car beached in the gravel at the Porsche Curves with just over six hours to go.
That was followed by numerous trips to the garage that left the #3 machine down in fifth and 15 laps down on the winning car, five laps behind the #1 Rebellion of Neel Jani, Bruno Senna and Andre Lotterer which had dropped out of the fight for privateer honours before night fell.
SMP could have made it a three-four if not for a terminal crash at the Porsche Curves for Egor Orudzhev in the #17 BR1 he shared with Stephane Sarrazin and Sergey Sirotkin.
Neither of the remaining LMP1s, the DragonSpeed BR1 and the ByKolles entry, were still in the race by sunrise. The #10 BR1 was plagued and ultimately halted by persistent electronic gremlins, while the #4 ENSO CLM P1/01 suffered a terminal gearshift problem in the early hours.
LMP2: Signatech Alpine seals dominant victory
Signatech trio Nicolas Lapierre, Pierre Thiriet and Andre Negrao secured a dominant victory in the LMP2 division in their #36 Alpine-branded Oreca, backing up their inherited victory of last year and also securing WEC class championship victory in the process.
Their triumph again owed much to G-Drive Racing hitting trouble, as the #26 Aurus-badged Oreca shared by Roman Rusinov, Jean-Eric Vergne and Job van Uitert gave up a dominant three-minute lead after losing 20 minutes to a wiring issue during a routine stop in hour 19.
From there, the #36 crew was not challenged for victory, having already established a lap's buffer over the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca shared by Ho-Pin Tung, Stephane Richelmi and Gabriel Aubry, which lost ground when the car lost a lap with a puncture.
Third place went to the polesitting #28 TDS Oreca of Loic Duval, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Francois Perrodo, who enjoyed an easy run to what became the final podium place after Pastor Maldonado crashed the #31 DragonSpeed Oreca at Tertre Rouge with just under seven hours remaining.
Best of the non-Orecas was the fourth-placed United Autosports LMP2 of Phil Hanson, Paul di Resta and Filipe Albuquerque, two laps down, ahead of the IDEC Sport Oreca and the G-Drive car, which was able to recover from its issue to finish sixth, four laps down.
The sister Jackie Chan DC Racing car failed to finish after suffering a gearbox failure while running inside the top five.
GTE Pro: Ferrari wins after Corvette heartbreak
Ferrari scored its first GTE Pro class victory since 2014 thanks to the efforts of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Daniel Serra in the #51 AF Corse 488 GTE.
The vagaries of the safety car periods had essentially turned the battle for honours into a two-horse race between the #51 Ferrari and the #63 Corvette of Antonio Garcia, Jan Magnussen and Mike Rockenfeller heading into the morning hours.
However, the 21st-hour intervention caused by Nyck de Vries’ high-speed off in the Racing Team Nederland Dallara at Indianapolis led to the #63 car getting held at the end of pitlane, which handed the #51 Ferrari a one-minute lead it would never lose.
Any chance of Corvette salvaging a podium finish was lost when Magnussen spun at the Porsche Curves, making light contact with the barriers, which cost the car two laps. A further 15-minute trip to the garage left it five laps off the pace.
Corvette had already lost one car when Marcel Fassler hit the barriers at the same part of the track with force towards the end of the sixth hour, the result of contact with the #88 Dempsey-Proton Porsche of Satoshi Hoshino for which the stewards judged Fassler to blame.
Behind the winning Ferrari, Porsche filled out the remaining spots on the podium, with the #91 car of Gianmaria Bruni, Frederic Makowiecki and Richard Lietz beating the best of the IMSA entries, the #93 of Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber and Patrick Pilet, by under 20s.
Ford’s quartet of retro-liveried GTs filled out the next four places, led by the #68 machine of 2016 class winners Sebastien Bourdais, Dirk Muller and Joey Hand.
Exhaust problems in the night cost the #92 Porsche crew any of chance of defending their 2018 victory, but 10th and fifth among the WEC points-scoring cars was enough to ensure Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen came away with title honours.
Both BMW and Aston Martin had races to forget, BMW’s top finisher finishing six laps down in 11th and both Astons suffering problems in the night.
Marco Sorensen’s violent crash at Indianapolis in the #95 Vantage GTE, which had started on pole, made it one of three non-finishers in the class, along with the #64 Corvette and the #71 Ferrari, which suffered engine troubles.
GTE Am: Keating Ford survives late scare
Keating Motorsports' privateer Ford GT, piloted by Ben Keating, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Felipe Fraga, held on for a narrow win in GTE Am, surviving a late scare when owner-driver Keating picked up a stop-and-go-penalty.
The Wynn's-liveried #85 machine had led by as much as a lap, but in the closing hours the #56 Project 1 Porsche of Jorg Bergmeister, Egidio Perfetti and Patrick Lindsey had worked its way back into the fray even before Keating earned his penalty for spinning his wheels in a pitstop.
That infraction reduced a 36s lead to less than 5s, but Bleekemolen was able to pull away in the final hour to secure victory by around 50s, helped by a late splash for Bergmeister - who nonetheless sealed WEC GTE Am class title honours along with his teammates.
The final spot on the class podium went to the JMW Motorsport Ferrari of Rodrigo Baptista, Jeff Segal and Wei Lu, which ended up only 40 seconds behind the Project 1 Porsche.
Full race results:
Cla | # | Drivers | Car | Class | Laps | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 8 |
Sébastien Buemi
Kazuki Nakajima Fernando Alonso |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 385 | |
2 | 7 |
Mike Conway
Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 385 | 16.972 |
3 | 11 |
Vitaly Petrov
Mikhail Aleshin Stoffel Vandoorne |
BR Engineering BR1 | LMP1 | 379 | 6 Laps |
4 | 1 |
Neel Jani
Andre Lotterer Bruno Senna |
Rebellion R13 | LMP1 | 376 | 9 Laps |
5 | 3 |
Thomas Laurent
Nathanael Berthon Gustavo Menezes |
Rebellion R13 | LMP1 | 370 | 15 Laps |
6 | 36 |
Nicolas Lapierre
Andre Negrao Pierre Thiriet |
Alpine A470 | LMP2 | 368 | 17 Laps |
7 | 38 |
Ho-Pin Tung
Stéphane Richelmi Gabriel Aubry |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 367 | 18 Laps |
8 | 28 |
François Perrodo
Matthieu Vaxiviere Loic Duval |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 366 | 19 Laps |
9 | 22 |
Philip Hanson
Filipe Albuquerque Paul di Resta |
Ligier JSP 217 | LMP2 | 365 | 20 Laps |
10 | 48 |
Paul Lafargue
Paul-Loup Chatin Memo Rojas |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 364 | 21 Laps |
11 | 26 |
Roman Rusinov
Job Van Uitert Jean-Eric Vergne |
Aurus 01 | LMP2 | 364 | 21 Laps |
12 | 30 |
Nico Jamin
Pierre Ragues Romain Dumas |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 363 | 22 Laps |
13 | 23 |
Rene Binder
Julien Canal Will Stevens |
Ligier JSP 217 | LMP2 | 362 | 23 Laps |
14 | 39 |
Tristan Gommendy
Vincent Capillaire Jonathan Hirschi |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 362 | 23 Laps |
15 | 25 |
David Zollinger
Andrea Pizzitola John Falb |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 357 | 28 Laps |
16 | 20 |
Anders Fjordbach
Dennis Andersen Mathias Beche |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 356 | 29 Laps |
17 | 50 |
Erwin Creed
Romano Ricci Nicholas Boulle |
Ligier JSP 217 | LMP2 | 355 | 30 Laps |
18 | 47 |
Roberto Lacorte
Giorgio Sernagiotto Andrea Belicchi |
Dallara P217 | LMP2 | 352 | 33 Laps |
19 | 32 |
Ryan Cullen
Alex Brundle |
Ligier JSP 217 | LMP2 | 348 | 37 Laps |
20 | 51 |
Alessandro Pier Guidi
James Calado Daniel Serra |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 342 | 43 Laps |
21 | 91 |
Gianmaria Bruni
Richard Lietz Frédéric Makowiecki |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 342 | 43 Laps |
22 | 93 |
Patrick Pilet
Earl Bamber Nick Tandy |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 342 | 43 Laps |
23 | 68 |
Joey Hand
Dirk Muller Sébastien Bourdais |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 342 | 43 Laps |
24 | 67 |
Andy Priaulx
Harry Tincknell Jonathan Bomarito |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 342 | 43 Laps |
25 | 69 |
Ryan Briscoe
Richard Westbrook Scott Dixon |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 341 | 44 Laps |
26 | 66 |
Stefan Mücke
Olivier Pla Billy Johnson |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 340 | 45 Laps |
27 | 29 |
Frits van Eerd
Giedo van der Garde Nyck de Vries |
Dallara P217 | LMP2 | 340 | 45 Laps |
28 | 94 |
Sven Muller
Mathieu Jaminet Dennis Olsen |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 339 | 46 Laps |
29 | 63 |
Jan Magnussen
Antonio Garcia Mike Rockenfeller |
Chevrolet Corvette C7R | LMGTE PRO | 337 | 48 Laps |
30 | 92 |
Michael Christensen
Kevin Estre Laurens Vanthoor |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 337 | 48 Laps |
31 | 82 |
Augusto Farfus
Antonio Felix da Costa Jesse Krohn |
BMW M8 GTE | LMGTE PRO | 335 | 50 Laps |
32 | 85 |
Ben Keating
Jeroen Bleekemolen Felipe Fraga |
Ford GT | LMGTE AM | 334 | 51 Laps |
33 | 56 |
Jörg Bergmeister
Patrick Lindsey Egidio Perfetti |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 334 | 51 Laps |
34 | 84 |
Jeff Segal
Rodrigo Baptista Wei Lu |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 334 | 51 Laps |
35 | 62 |
Cooper MacNeil
Toni Vilander Robert Smith |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 333 | 52 Laps |
36 | 77 |
Matt Campbell
Christian Ried Julien Andlauer |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 332 | 53 Laps |
37 | 57 |
Takeshi Kimura
Kei Cozzolino Côme Ledogar |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 332 | 53 Laps |
38 | 78 |
Louis Prette
Philippe Prette Vincent Abril |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 332 | 53 Laps |
39 | 61 |
Luis Perez Companc
Matthew Griffin Matteo Cressoni |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 331 | 54 Laps |
40 | 86 |
Michael Wainwright
Benjamin Barker Thomas Preining |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 331 | 54 Laps |
41 | 83 |
Manuela Gostner
Rahel Frey Michelle Gatting |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 330 | 55 Laps |
42 | 89 |
Pipo Derani
Oliver Jarvis Jules Gounon |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 329 | 56 Laps |
43 | 70 |
Motoaki Ishikawa
Olivier Beretta Eddie Cheever III |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 328 | 57 Laps |
44 | 90 |
Salih Yoluc
Euan Hankey Charles Eastwood |
Aston Martin Vantage | LMGTE AM | 327 | 58 Laps |
45 | 54 |
Thomas Flohr
Francesco Castellacci Giancarlo Fisichella |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 327 | 58 Laps |
46 | 97 |
Alex Lynn
Maxime Martin Jonathan Adam |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE PRO | 325 | 60 Laps |
47 | 34 |
Jakub Smiechowski
James Winslow Nigel Moore |
Ligier JSP 217 | LMP2 | 325 | 60 Laps |
48 | 60 |
Claudio Schiavoni
Andrea Piccini Sergio Pianezzola |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 324 | 61 Laps |
49 | 81 |
Nick Catsburg
Martin Tomczyk Philipp Eng |
BMW M8 GTE | LMGTE PRO | 309 | 76 Laps |
43 |
John Farano
Arjun Maini Norman Nato |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 295 | 90 Laps | |
31 |
Roberto Gonzalez
Pastor Maldonado Anthony Davidson |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 245 | 140 Laps | |
37 |
David Heinemeier Hansson
Jordan King Ricky Taylor |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 199 | 186 Laps | |
17 |
Stéphane Sarrazin
Egor Orudzhev Sergey Sirotkin |
BR Engineering BR1 | LMP1 | 163 | 222 Laps | |
4 |
Tom Dillmann
Oliver Webb Paolo Ruberti |
ENSO CLM P1/01 | LMP1 | 163 | 222 Laps | |
49 |
Miro Konopka
Henning Enqvist Konstantin Tereshchenko |
Ligier JSP 217 | LMP2 | 160 | 225 Laps | |
71 |
Davide Rigon
Sam Bird Miguel Molina |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 140 | 245 Laps | |
95 |
Marco Sorensen
Nicki Thiim Darren Turner |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE PRO | 132 | 253 Laps | |
98 |
Paul Dalla Lana
Pedro Lamy Mathias Lauda |
Aston Martin Vantage | LMGTE AM | 87 | 298 Laps | |
64 |
Oliver Gavin
Tommy Milner Marcel Fassler |
Chevrolet Corvette C7R | LMGTE PRO | 82 | 303 Laps | |
88 |
Satoshi Hoshino
Giorgio Roda Matteo Cairoli |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 79 | 306 Laps | |
10 |
Henrik Hedman
Ben Hanley Renger van der Zande |
BR Engineering BR1 | LMP1 | 76 | 309 Laps | |
View full results |
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