Porsche claimed a record 19th outright victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in a gruelling race in which all five works LMP1 machines suffered major problems.
The trio of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber topped the podium in their Porsche 919 Hybrid, despite seemingly dropping out of contention when they were forced to pit due to a motor generator issue in the fourth hour.
But they moved back into contention as the other works Porsche and Toyota prototypes hit trouble. The #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Stéphane Sarrazin dominated the early portion of the race, until being sidelined by a clutch problem in the tenth hour.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans - by the numbers
The sister #8 machine of Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima had already fallen out of contention by that point, losing 29 laps after having to pit to replace the front motor and battery.
Toyota’s challenge then crumbled entirely. 15 minutes after the #7 car’s retirement, the third TS050 Hybrid suffered terminal damage after a clash with an LMP2 car.
Toyota’s misfortunes handed the #1 Porsche of André Lotterer, Neel Jani and Nick Tandy a massive lead - but with less than four hours to go that machine was sidelined by an engine problem.
That set up a dramatic finish, with the second-division LMP2 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA of Ho-Pin Tung, Oliver Jarvis and Thomas Laurent assuming the lead, but being chased down by the recovering #2 Porsche.
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What is the fix for LMP1?
Instead manufactures are being attracted to Formula E and Formula 1 while many privateteers are reluctant to join LMP1 (as opposed to LMP1-H) because they just know they'll be uncompetitive against the factory teams with their hybrid cars while the pace of the current LMP2 cars doesn't help either. LMP1-H is massively expensive, right on a par with F1 but sportscar racing needs to retain a class that is the pinnacle of motor racing technology and development alongside F1.
Perhaps stating that all LMP1 cars and/or just the powertrains must also be available as customer items might help. Ok, a LMP1-H car isn't going to be exactly cheap but buying one of the shelf will mean a team may not have to spend millions in design, R&D and manufacturing. Allowing hybrid engines to become available to privateers may mean they'll have cars that could well be on the pace as the factory teams - if F1 allows customer engines, why not the WEC? And for non-hybrid engines currently in LMP1, change the rules so their power can be right up their with the hybrid cars while it'll mean teams that can't afford expensive hybrid engines will at least have a competitive alternative. At the moment a non-hybrid team in LMP1 is around 300bhp-400bhp down and it shows.
The winning Porsche ran
Get rid of the prototype categories altogether