Toyota has had defeat stolen from the jaws of victory in one of the closest battles in recent Le Mans history.
Kazuki Nakajima, Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi were set to become the first team from the Japanese manufacturer to win Le Mans since 1991, until their number five TS050 slowed on the penultimate lap – grinding to a halt in front of the main grandstand in front of 100,000 sports car fans.
Number five’s failure elevated Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Neel Jani to their first Le Mans victory, ahead of the number six Toyota of Stephane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi, and the number eight Audi of Oliver Jarvis, Lucas di Grassi and Loic Duval.
Halfway through the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the number six of Mike Conway, Stéphane Sarrazin and Kamui Kobayashi pulled the rug out from under Porsche and Audi to lead the race and record the fastest lap so far, with Kobayashi on a 3:21.445.
After an hour behind the safety car in the rain, standing water was suitably removed to resume proceedings, with Porsche leading the way in the hands of Romain Dumas, but surprisingly the TS050 of Mike Conway stayed in tow.
Toyota’s ability to run to 14 laps has given the Japanese a massive strategic advantage over Porsche and Audi by the region of one to two laps.
Sebastien Buemi took the fight head-on after 8am Sunday morning, putting a move on the Mike Conway Toyota and controlling the race after a tussle with the number 2 Porsche.
Turbo issues hit the number seven Audi R18 early, requiring a complete turbo-charger change, but both Audis managed to crawl back to fourth and fifth when the number one Porsche of Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley encountered overheating issues, forcing them to spend an hour in the pits changing a broken water-pump.
The number seven car once again struck trouble at the 12-hour mark, but was able to start again under electric power to complete a full lap back into the pits.
Nicolas Lapierre, Gustavo Menezes and Stephane Richelmi took victory for Signatech Alpine after controlling the race for the final three hours ahead of G-Drive Racing and SMP Racing.
Risi Competizione startled Ford to lead the #GTE Pro class, leading Ford in second and third. The number 66 Ford GT had been in podium contention until it lost a lap with electrical problems, however Dirk Muller, Joey Hand and Sebastien Bourdais used the speed advantage of the Ford GT to take a one-minute victory.
The Abu Dhabi Proton Porsche has had a three-hour turn in the lead of GTE am ahead of both the number 98 Aston Martin Vantage and the number 78 Porsche KCMG, but eventual victory fell the way of Scuderia Corsa’s 458 in the hands of Jeffery Segal, Townsend Bell and William Sweeder.
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