Porsche has claimed its first overall victory at Le Mans since 1998.
The #19 car, driven by Nico Hulkenberg, Earl Bamber and Nick Tandy were out front for the majority of the race and almost the entire last nine hours over the sister #17 car driven by Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard and the #7 Audi driven by three time Le Mans winning trio Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer.
Lotterer did manage to get one small victory for Audi as he was able to secure the fastest lap of the race with a lap of 3:17.475.
However, despite Porsche’s near certain win after their domination, the old cliché came true again.
No matter what, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is never over until the checkered flag waves.
Everybody was reminded of that as the GTE-Am class leading car, the #98 Aston Martin driven by Paul Dalla Lana, crashed into the barrier coming through the Ford Chicanes during the final hour of the race.
The accident moved the #72 SMP Racing Ferrari 458 Italia to the lead and the Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche to second while the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 Italia went to third, piloted by the only all American lineup of Townsend Bell, Jeff Segal and Bill Sweedler.
In LMP2, KCMG led for nearly the entire distance as Richard Bradley, Matthew Howson and former Toyota LMP1 driver Nicolas Lapierre won the class and finished 9th overall, just one spot behind the last of the factory Toyota LMP1 prototypes. However, KCMG had their own dramas as they briefly stopped at Arnage corner for a few minutes at the start of the last six hours.
GTE-Pro had its own drama in the last few hours as the #51 AF Corse Ferrari was brought into the garage by Tony Vilander with an unknown issue with the rear of the car. The Ferrari issues all but cemented victory for the #64 Corvette Racing C7.R, driven by Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Jordan Taylor. The #51 Ferrari finished third in class and was overtaken by the sister #71 car driven at the finish by Davide Rigon.
Image: Porsche
