Nickas Nielsen, Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina took the checkered flag in the #50 Ferrari 499P 14 seconds ahead of the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID of Nyck de Vries, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez, while the Ferrari No. 51 of reigning champion Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi complete the podium.
There was drama in the penultimate hour when the right door of the #50 Ferrari began to flap rapidly, prompting race control to show a black and orange flag. Nielsen was forced to bring the car back to the pits after just six laps of the stint, but managed to maintain the clear lead over the No. 7 Toyota.
Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P #50: Nicklas Nielsen celebrates victory
Nielsen’s race to the finish was aided by Lopez’s spin at the Dunlop Curve and brief stop on track, an error that ended any remaining chance for Toyota to add to its lead. five victories at Le Mans.
Ferrari had looked fast from the start at the 92nd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with all three 499Ps – including the customer-entered AF Corse – charging into the lead from the opening hour.
The No. 50 factory car and No. 83 customer car opted to stay away when rain briefly hit the track Saturday evening, a decision that placed the two 499Ps well apart from the rest of the field. peloton, because most of the cars – including the #51 Ferrari – had to return to the pits to switch back to slicks.
The race was neutralized for the first time after dark in Sarthe, when the #20 BMW of Robin Frijns crashed at the end of Mulsanne after contact with the #83 Ferrari then driven by Robert Kubica .
It took marshals nearly two hours to put the barriers back in place, and the action resumed just after midnight. Another safety car period followed in the early hours of the morning, as rain and fog made the track unsafe for racing, with Toyota, Porsche and Ferrari all trading first place.
It was only at dawn that the race returned to green, the face of the race changing almost hourly as a number of manufacturers enjoyed stints at the front.
The No. 50 Ferrari made significant progress in the 18th hour before the final downpour, as Fuoco overtook the No. 83 Ferrari and the No. 5 Porsche of Frederic Makowiecki to take second, when a No. 2 Cadillac out of sync stopped to switch to rain tires. .
Pier Guidi managed to hold on to the last place on the podium at the wheel of the #51 Ferrari he shared with James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi despite strong pressure from the #6 Porsche 963 driven by Laurens Vanthoor.
Pier Guidi was handed a five-second penalty for crashing into Brendon Hartley’s No. 8 Toyota in the penultimate hour, an incident that left Hartley facing the wrong side of the track at Mulsanne corner.
Pre-race favorite Porsche had to settle for fourth, with Vanthoor finishing just 1.1 seconds behind Pier Guidi in the No. 6 963 LMDh he shared with Kevin Estre and Andre Lotterer.
The #6 Porsche moved to the front in the 18th hour after pitting in a slow zone, ironically caused by Felipe Nasr’s crash on the #4 sister entered in Indianapolis. However, the #6 had to make its next pit stop under a safety car – brought in by Heart of Racing’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 shunting into the same corner – which dropped the trio down the order.
#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 – Hybrid: Sébastien Buemi
Photo: Rainier Ehrhardt
The #8 Toyota delayed by the incident with Pier Guidi finished fifth, Sébastien Buemi bringing 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 surprise contender for victory Sunday afternoon, as a well-timed pit stop before the final safety car placed the No. 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 factory crew could potentially gain from their pit strategy was negated when rain fell on the track over the final three hours, putting the entire field at risk. Hypercar on rain tires around the same time.
Palou, a two-time IndyCar champion, finally brought the No. 2 Caddy to seventh place at the finish, ahead of the two Jota customer Porsches.
The No. 12 Jota Porsche, which was rebuilt around a new chassis in record time after a crash in FP2 on Wednesday, finished eighth ahead of the No. 38 car.
Peugeot had another difficult outing with the new 2024 9X8 which debuted at the Imola round of the World Endurance Championship, with the car struggling to find pace in all conditions.
Stoffel Vandoorne, Paul di Resta and Loic Duval finished 11th in the best of the French manufacturer’s two factory cars, three laps behind the winning Toyota, after receiving a drive-through for overtaking under the slow zone.
The No. 93 car also had to cross the pit lane after Mikel Jensen was found at fault for a collision with the No. 95 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 car. This, combined with a crash by Nico Muller under the safety car, left him, Jensen and Jean-Eric Vergne in 12th place in the final standings, one lap behind the sister car.
Lamborghini was the best of the Hypercar class newcomers after a solid but unremarkable race for the Iron Lynx-led factory team at Le Mans. The Italian brand never had the pace to trouble its more established factory rivals, but its two SC63s ran without major problems, apart from a few spins in the fourth hour.
The #63 Lamborghini entered for the entire WEC season finished ahead of the Peugeot in 10th place with Mirko Bortolotti, Daniil Kvyat and Edoardo Mortara, while the #19 sister car brought back from IMSA and driven by Romain Grosjean, Andrea Caldarelli and Matteo Cairoli finished in 10th position. in 13th place.
Isotta Fraschini was the only other new manufacturer to be classified, after Jean-Karl Vernay, Carl Wattana Bennett and Antonio Serravalle managed to bring the No. 11 Tipo6-C to 14th place.
BMW and Alpine were out of the race before midnight on Saturday, despite promising pre-race pace.
Engine failures were the cause of Alpine’s double retirement at Le Mans, with Ferdinand Habsburg parking the #35 A424 LMDh at Arnage in the fifth hour and Nicolas Lapierre pulling the sister car into the garage shortly after.
BMW’s troubles began from the opening hour when Marco Wittmann came out at the Esses and immediately put the #15 M Hybrid V8 on the back foot. His teammate Dries Vanthoor was trying to recover from his first setback when he collided with the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Kubica at the end of Mulsanne overnight, the impact sending him head-on into the barriers from armco.
At this point, the #20 BMW was already in the garage after Robin Frijns rolled onto the curbs at the Ford chicane and suffered what appeared to be terminal damage. BMW eventually managed to get the car repaired to send teammate Sheldon van der Linde back onto the track in the final hour, but the car was not classified as it failed to complete the required 70% distance.
The No. 83 customer Ferrari, which led much of the race on Saturday and was well in contention at the start of the afternoon, finally retired due to technical problems in the 20th hour, with television images showing plumes smoke coming from the front.
The No. 3 Cadillac and No. 4 Porsche were among six unclassified Hypercars.
Porsche triumphs in the new 2024 LMGT3 category
Porsche claimed another WEC victory in the LMGT3 category thanks to Richard Lietz, Yasser Shahin and Morris Schuring taking top honors at the wheel of the No. 91 Manthey EMA 911 GT3 R.
Victory in the production category 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 a number of main contenders dropped out due to various reasons. the reasons.
Gelael managed to take the lead when the rain returned to the track with just over two hours to go, but Porsche factory driver Lietz had no difficulty overtaking his silver-ranked rival during the race. of the race to Indianapolis to lead the No. 91 crew to victory. first victory in LMGT3 at Le Mans.
Manthey’s sister #92 PureRxcing was also in the battle for victory 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 problems electrical.
Proton Competition took third and fourth with its pair of Ford Mustang GT3s, the No. 88 car of Dennis Olsen, Giorgio Roda and Mikkel Pedersen finishing ahead of Christopher Mies, Ben Tuck and John Hartshorne in the sister car.
All three McLaren 720S GT3s entered, including the pole-winning Inception Racing car, suffered a series of problems on Sunday that left them out of the count.