Ferrari has claimed back-to-back 24 hours of Le Mans wins with the #50 499P of Antonio Fuoco/Miguel Molina/Nicklas Nielsen beating the #7 Toyota of Jose Maria Lopez/Kamui Kobayashi/Nyck de Vries in thrilling circumstances.
The final stages of the race turned into a classic endurance race duel, as the #50 Ferrari in the hands of Nielsen was forced into fuel saving after getting off sequence when his door wouldn’t close and forced an extra stop to slam it shut. He was forced to converse, while Lopez in the #7 Toyota and Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari drove flat out having pushed their final pit stop nearly 10 minutes after Nielsen.
Somehow the Danish rising sportscar star was able to stretch his fuel and energy from his final stop with 50 minutes to go to record a life-changing win for himself, as well as Fuoco and Molina.
Lopez, a last-minute replacement for the injured Mike Conway, put in a storming final stint in pursuit of Nieslen in the wet conditions. The Argentinian was clearly pushing the limits, slipping off-track several times, but managed to avoid any serious problems and kept cutting the gap to the leading Ferrari. However, it wasn’t enough and Toyota had to settle for second to Ferrari for the second year in a row.
Third place went to the #51 Ferrari of defending race winners Alessandro Pier Guidi/James Calado/Antonio Giovanazzi. Pier Guidi looked like losing his podium position in the final minutes of the race as Porsche’s Laurens Vanthoor tried to charge back into contention but ultimately the pace of the Ferrari proved too much and meant the Porsche Penske powerhouse missed the podium at Le Mans for the second year in a row.
Australia’s Matt Campbell was in contention throughout the race, but his chance for victory was stymied by two penalties to his #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963. He and his teammates, Michael Christensen and Frederic Makowiecki eventually finished in sixth place, just ahead of the best Cadillac, the #2 example shared with Earl Bamber/Alex Lynn/Alex Palou.
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Nine Hypercars finished on the lead lap, the last of which were the Team Jota privately run Porsches, with the #12 entry of Will Stevens/Norman Nato/Callum Ilott (which was rebuilt on Friday pre-race) leading home the #38 963 of Jenson Button/Phil Hanson/Oliver Rasmussen.
The LMP2 class may have been in the shadow of the booming Hypercar field, but it was just as competitive as the outright contest. In the end it was the #22 United Autosports entry shared by Oliver Jarvis/Bijoy Garg/Nolan Siegel that crossed the finish line first after a tightly contested, race-long fight against the second placed #34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca-Gibson driven by Jakub Smiechowski/Clement Novalak/Vladislav Lomko, with the #28 IDEC Sport entry of Paul Lafargue/Job van Uitert/Reshad de Gurus claiming the final podium spot.
The LMGT3 contest came down to a two-way fight between the #91 Mathey EMA Porsche 911 R piloted by Richard Lietz/Morris Schuring/Yasser Shahin and the BMW M4 of Team WRT shared by Augusto Farfus/Darren Leung/Sean Gelael.
A fantastic final stint by Platinum-rated Lietz ultimately swung the contest in the Porsche team’s favour, handing Australian Shahin a well-earned class victory at the biggest endurance race in the world.
The final podium spot went to the #88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang driven by Dennis Olsen/Giorgio Roda/Mikkel Pedersen, making for a successful return to the French classic by the American car maker. The big, V8-powered Mustang proved well-suited to the long straights at Le Mans to put in its best WEC performance to date.
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