In the 24h of Le Mans 2019, just like last year, Toyota was the only LMP1 hybrid car. Eventough the FIA soften the regulation for the non-hybrid car, the gap was too big to catch the two Japanese siblings. Nevertheless lot of action took place in the GT category and the fight for the 3rd place in LMP1 was tough between SMP racing and Rebellion.
The 2019 24h of Le Mans ranking
Winner of the LMP1 class and overall winner
Winner of the LMP2 class
Winner of the GTE Pro class
Winner of the GTE Am class
As expected the Toyota won the race but with the #8! Why is that surprising? Because the #7 was in the lead for more than 23 hours and due to a miswired sensor it had to pit twice, letting the lead for the #8. The sensor was indicating a flat tire on the front right but it was actually the back left.
1 – Toyota TS050 Hybrid #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing – Sébastien Buemi / Kazuki Nakajima / Fernando Alonso
2 – Toyota TS050 Hybrid #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing – Mike Conway / Kamui Kobayashi / Jose-Maria Lopez
3 – BR Engineering BR1 #11 SMP Racing – Mikhail Aleshin / Stoffel Vandoorne / Vitaly Petrov
In the LMP2 class, the three main opponents for the lead were G-Drive, Signatech Alpine and TDS Racing. Thanks to Jean-Eric Vergne, G-Drive was in front of the Alpine during the night, but as always in Le Mans, the night can be tricky. For the Russian team, during its 28th pit stop, the car refused to start… 20 minutes later, they were back on track but it was too late to catch the French.
1 – Alpine A470 #36 Signatech Alpine Matmut – Nicolas Lapierre / André Negrão / Pierre Thiriet
2 – Oreca 07 #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing – Gabriel Aubry / Stéphane Richelmi / Ho-Pin Tung
3 – Oreca 07 #28 TDS Racing – Loïc Duval / François Perrodo / Matthieu Vaxivière
GTE Pro was intense! Even after 7PM on Saturday, the five cars in the lead were still wheel to wheel. After midnight, both Aston Martin cars end up in the sandpit, only the #97 was able to get back. At the end, it’s Ferrari who won the race, like they did for the first time 70 years ago.
1 – Ferrari 488 GTE #51 AF Corse – James Calado / Alessandro Pier Guidi / Daniel Serra
2 – Porsche 911 RSR #91 Porsche GT Team – Gianmaria Bruni / Richard Lietz / Frédéric Makowiecki
3 – Porsche 911 RSR #93 Porsche GT Team – Earl Bamber / Patrick Pilet / Nick Tandy
In the GTE Am class, the Ford GT #85 had a good fight against the Porsche 911 RSR #56. Unfortunately, after an inspection of the car after the race, it was discovered that the Ford’s fuel tank had a capacity of 97.83 litress instead of the regulatory 97. As the rules are the rules, both Ford GT #85 and #68 (GTE Pro) were disqualified.
1 – Ford GT #85 Keating Motorsports – Jeroen Bleekemolen / Ben Keating / Felipe Fraga
2 – Porsche 911 RSR #56 Team Project 1 – Jörg Bergmeister / Patrick Lindsey / Egidio Perfetti
3 – Ferrari 488 GTE #84 JMW Motorsport – Jeffrey Segal / Rodrigo Baptista / Wei Lu
The 2019 24h of Le Mans Race
To give you a taste of this legendary race, we made a selection of the best shots we made during the event.
Bonus
We had the pleasure to see Mr. Jacky Ickx driving the Ford GT40 with which he won Le Mans in 1969. In that year, he walked to his car instead of running to show the dangerousness of this practice. Plus, he wanted to point out it was not required to do so to win the race.
