In what turned out to be a brutal race of attrition and failures, the trio of Audi R15s forced all four of the Peugeot 908 HDI FAP cars into retirement, and held on to win, taking the top three spots in LMP1 and win the overall. The #9 car of Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller encountered zero problems and ran a flawless race, finishing in a well-earned first position. It seemed highly unlikely that Audi would be able to take a podium spot, let alone the win, but the Peugeots all succumbed to terminal problems, indicating their blistering fast qualifying pace may have been more of a bluff than most would have assumed.
Clicking off 3:20 laps was not a problem for the Peugeots, who were as much as 5-6 seconds a lap faster than the revised R15 on Wednesday, but it was pace they simply could not keep up. After the top-qualifying #3 908 went out early with tub failure, the #2 car held a commanding lead, hunted by Audis in second, third and sixth. Early Sunday morning the #2 gave up its lead with a blaze of fire from the right bank indicating terminal engine failure.
The #1 Peugeot was then in full attack mode, running lap after lap at qualifying pace before it too went out with a bang just before 7 o'clock. The final remaining #4 908 of Team Oreca Matmut was the lone wolf in the silver Audi herd, and was pressing even harder than the #1, setting fastest lap of the race and very nearly catching the #7 Audi for third position before blowing up in exactly the same spot as the #2 did, with flames from the right back on the out lap from a pitstop.
Clearly they were focused on an all-or-nothing result, and in the end they got nothing.
GT2 saw Porsche return to the winner's circle at Le Mans after many years of missed chances and a complete absence from the podium last year, with the #77 Felbermayr Proton Porsche RSR of Marc Lieb, Richard Lietz and Wolf Henzler, from Team Falken Tire, taking the class win.
The BMW Art Car M3 did not do well, ending up with several punctures and multiple problems before finally being retired. It will also go down in infamy as it caused Tom Kristensen to go off at the Porsche curves on one of those occasions. Still it looked great, even if the results were not such.
Sadly none of the teams from the ALMS fared well, with strong runners such as Corvette and Risi running each other into the ground and allowing the Porsches to step into the win. Highcroft had cooling problems, and Autocon and Jaguar barely managed to start, let alone finish. As they say to finish first, first you must finish, and nothing exemplifies that like this year's 24.
_WRS
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