Audi has taken its 13th victory at a thrilling Le Mans 24 Hours after a strong challenge from Porsche and Toyota ended when the lead cars from both manufacturers hit trouble on Sunday morning.
The number two Audi R18 E-tron Quattro of Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoit Tréluyer finished first in the endurance race, ahead of the number one sister car of Lucas di Grassi, Marc Gené and Tom Kristensen.
For most of the race Toyota's TS040 Hybrid appeared to have the advantage over Audi and Porsche on raw pace, but the number eight car was caught up in a dramatic multi-car accident during a heavy rain storm on Saturday afternoon.
The same incident accounted for the number three Audi of Felipe Albuquerque, Marco Bonanomi and Oliver Jarvis after it was struck from behind by a GT car at high-speed.
Unlike the Audi, the Japanese machine was able to continue after repairs in the pits, and Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Lapierre and Sébastien Buemi recovered to claim third place by the end.
The number seven Toyota, which had qualified on pole position, led for most of the night in the hands of Alexander Wurz, Stéphane Sarrazin and Kazuki Nakajima, but it fell victim to an electrical malady in the early hours of Sunday.
Porsche's number 20 car, driven by Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber, traded the lead with the number two Audi on Sunday morning, but shortly after Webber had climbed aboard the 919 Hybrid, an engine problem forced him to bring the car back into the pits, where it was retired.
That left the number two Audi in the lead ahead of the number one car. The latter car's performance was remarkable considering the car had to be completely rebuilt after Loïc Duval had an enormous accident at the Porsche Curves in practice. Duval was ruled unfit to start by Le Mans officials, and Gené was drafted in to substitute for him.
The number 14 Porsche of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb finished the race in 11th position, having been delayed by fuel flow problems in the early stages of the event and further mechanical issues in the closing stages of the event.
Victory in the LMP2 category went to the Jota Sport Zytek-Nissan of Simon Dolan, Harry Tincknell and Oliver Turvey.
Ferrari won the GTE Pro class, with the AF Corse entry of Gianmaria Bruni, Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander taking the spoils in their 458 Italia.
GTE Am fell to Aston Martin. The factory-entered car of David Heinemeier Hansson, Kristian Poulsen and Nicki Thiim was first home in their Vantage V8.
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Whoa!
Fantastic race and championship
Despite all the 21st century tech (or rather, because of it), the race was an old-school battle of attrition. Each of the three manufacturers had a genuine shot at winning at one point or another, but once again Audi Team Joest prevailed despite a conservative tech decision, distraction of a massive practice accident and turbo failures on both podium cars. One of their best wins ever.
Agreed that WEC is the most
But sorry have to disagree on your Audi TJ loving comments at the end. I would say they won mainly down to luck (which of course everyone had, good or bad), a huge unrelenting budget spent on their technologies and resources and they run three cars! No one else runs three cars. So when one of their cars is out of the race early on, they still had two left, and yes even if they had had two cars thus going down to one, they probably would still have won. But the psychological pressure on the team as a whole would be much greater going down to just one. It's not Audi's fault the lead Toyota broke down but for a fan it's massively frustrating as they clearly had the Audi's licked for pace all weekend and very annoyingly couldn't get the lead car to the end! So fair play to Audi for winning - your comment about one of their best wins ever just grates to be honest as I think for example it was a "better" win when they prevailed over Peugeot a few years ago. This year they had more consistency than the others and of course consistency is key in a 24 hour race, but be under no illusions, one rival will improve whilst the other is already quicker - they've just got to sort their reliability out!
AddyT wrote:It's not Audi's
They did, but Toyota has previous there too. In 1998 and 1999, they had a very fast car with the magnificent GT-One, but on both occasions they failed to finish.
And I was actually cheering for Porsche (specifically Webber), not Audi. But you can't deny Team Joest as one of the all-time great operators at Le Mans, even before they ran Audi's works team.
Huh?
Toyota were less than 2 minutes up the road from Audi after 12 hours of racing??? And which car melted it's wiring loom it was generating so much heat? At night???
Credit where it is due. Audi chose the 2MJ route, and diesel technology and most people thought them stupid. They were right, and we were wrong.
It's not the first time for Audi. They've got previous. 2008 anyone?
disco.stu wrote:The WEC is
I have to put in a good word for the Aussie V8's. I watch the races on youtube and they really are good.
Aussie V8.
I've watched a few races on Motors TV etc. Definitely good racing. I've recommended it to friends as a more exciting alternative to F1 and with proper engines that you just don't get in BTCC any longer. Perhaps I should go see when it's on since F1 2014 is over!
Terriffic race
Can't wait for next year's race!