Porsche deny Toyota in mystifying Le Mans finish

Porsche has stolen victory from Toyota in the most unpredictable finish in Le Mans 24 Hour history.

The #5 Toyota of Kazuki Nakajima was set for victory however it lost power with less than a handful of minutes remaining, allowing polesitter Neel Jani to blast past in the #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid.

It was a remarkable turn of events after Toyota seemed certain to shake its long-held bogey at La Sarthe following an epic race-long fight.

With 11 minutes remaining the #2 Porsche pitted for fuel and tyres, in a resignation that it had conceded victory with Toyota subsequently enjoying a lead that had increased to almost 90 seconds.

However the Toyota lost power, slowed dramatically and then stopped on the start-finish line before it came to life only to stop again.

Nakajima was inconsolable on returning to the pit lane as Porsche were initially stunned at claiming its 18th outright Le Mans victory in such circumstances.

Adding to the gut-wrenching scenario was the fact that the #5 Toyota was not classified as a finisher.

The #6 Toyota driven by Stephane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi, which had done battle in and out of the lead before its sister car took over, was second.

Audi’s #8 R18 e-tron quattro driven by Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis was third.

“This race should have had two winners it was really an unbelievable race. I feel sorry for the guys down in the other garage,” Lieb said as a string of rivals began offering their sorrow for Toyota.

With the finish drowned in drama, it overshadowed a massive personal achievement for former Triple Eight Race Engineering stalwart Jeromy Moore, the race engineer on the winning Porsche in only his second season with the Weissach squad.

In the 21st hour when Anthony Davidson took control in the #5 Toyota he shared with Sebastien Buemi and Nakajima, by more than a minute ahead of Lieb who was at the controls of the #2 Porsche.

It then appeared that Toyota were set to become only the second Japanese marque, after Mazda’s iconic 787B won in 1991, to claim the day-night-day classic.

However the cruel twist in the closing minutes sees Toyota stricken with another hard luck story, adding to the pain of 1998 and 1999 when its GT-One machines appeared on target for victory only for it to go awry in the closing hours.

Porsche’s #1 919 of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard struck trouble early with two agonisingly long periods in the garage which saw a water pump replaced before it soldiered on, mired by more unscheduled pit stops before it fought back from near the tail to finish 13th.

In LMP2, the #36 Signatech Alpine Nissan driven by Nicolas Lapierre, Gustavo Menezes and Stephane Richelmi took from the SMP Racing BR01 Nissan.

Ford recorded a super win after a huge battle with Ferrari with the #68 Dirk Muller, Sebastien Bourdais and Joey Hand winning GTE Pro.

The Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 driven by Toni Vilander, Giancarlo Fisichella and Matteo Malucelli had swapped the lead throughout the race before settling for second.

GTE Am saw the #62 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 of Jeffrey Segal, Townsend Bell and William Sweedler take victory.

Emmanuel Collard grabbed second in the final 30 minutes in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 458 he shared with François Perrodo and Rui Aguas.

See below for full results

1	R.Dumas/N.Jani/M.Lieb	Porsche	384	24h 00:38.449
2	S.Sarrazin/M.Conway/K.Kobayashi	Toyota	381	3 Laps
3	L.di Grassi/L.Duval/O.Jarvis	Audi	372	12 Laps
4	M.Fassler/A.Lotterer/B.Treluyer	Audi	367	17 Laps
5	G.Menezes/N.Lapierre/S.Richelmi	Alpine/Nissan	357	27 Laps
6	R.Rusinov/W.Stevens/R.Rast	ORECA/Nissan	357	27 Laps
7	V.Petrov/V.Shaytar/K.Ladygin	BR Engineering/Nissan	353	31 Laps
8	N.Leventis/D.Watts/J.Kane	Gibson/Nissan	351	33 Laps
9	P.Jun Jin/T.Gommendy/N.de Bruijn	ORECA/Nissan	348	36 Laps
10	M.Rojas/J.Canal/N.Berthon	Ligier/Nissan	348	36 Laps
11	N.Minassian/M.Mediani/M.Aleshin	BR Engineering/Nissan	347	37 Laps
12	F.Barthez/P-L.Chatin/T.Buret	Ligier/Nissan	347	37 Laps
13	T.Bernhard/M.Webber/B.Hartley	Porsche	346	38 Laps
14	J.Pew/O.Negri/L.Vanthoor	Ligier/HPD	345	39 Laps
15	R.Gonzalez/B.Senna/F.Albuquerque	Ligier/Nissan	344	40 Laps
16	S.Sharp/E.Brown/J.van Overbeek	Ligier/Nissan	341	43 Laps
17	M.Munemann/C.Hoy/A.Pizzitola	Ligier/Nissan	341	43 Laps
18	J.Hand/D.Muller/S.Bourdais	Ford	340	44 Laps
19	G.Fisichella/T.Vilander/M.Malucelli	Ferrari	340	44 Laps
20	R.Briscoe/R.Westbrook/S.Dixon	Ford	340	44 Laps
21	O.Pla/S.Mucke/B.Johnson	Ford	339	45 Laps
22	T.Krohn/N.Jonsson/J.Barbosa	Ligier/Nissan	338	46 Laps
23	N.Thiim/M.Sorensen/D.Turner	Aston Martin	338	46 Laps
24	R.Stanaway/F.Rees/J.Adam	Aston Martin	337	47 Laps
25	J.Magnussen/A.Garcia/R.Taylor	Chevrolet	336	48 Laps
26	B.Sweedler/T.Bell/J.Segal	Ferrari	331	53 Laps
27	F.Perrodo/E.Collard/R.Aguas	Ferrari	331	53 Laps
28	K.Al Qubaisi/D.Hansson/P.Long	Porsche	330	54 Laps
29	N.Prost/N.Heidfeld/N.Piquet Jr.	Rebellion/AER	330	54 Laps
30	W.Sun Mok/K.Sawa/R.Bell	Ferrari	329	55 Laps
31	R.Lietz/M.Christensen/P.Eng	Porsche	329	55 Laps
32	V.Capillaire/E.Maris/J.Coleman	Ligier/Judd	328	56 Laps
33	M.Wainwright/A.Carroll/B.Barker	Porsche	328	56 Laps
34	B.Keating/J.Bleekemolen/M.Goossens	ORECA/Nissan	323	61 Laps
35	J.Laursen/M.Mac/C.Nielsen	Ferrari	319	65 Laps
36	A.Howard/L.Griffin/G.Hirsch	Aston Martin	318	66 Laps
37	Y.Yamagishi/P.Ragues/J-P.Belloc	Chevrolet	316	68 Laps
38	F.Sausset/C.Tinseau/J-B.Bouvet	Morgan/Nissan	315	69 Laps
39	J.O’Connell/O.Bryant/M.Patterson	Chevrolet	306	78 Laps
40	M.Franchitti/A.Priaulx/H.Tincknell	Ford	306	78 Laps
41	C.Ried/W.Henzler/J.Camathias	Porsche	300	84 Laps
42	R.Dalziel/L.Derani/C.Cumming	Ligier/Nissan	297	87 Laps
43	N.Leutwiler/S.Nakano/J.Winslow	ORECA/Judd	297	87 Laps
44	D.Cameron/M.Griffin/A.Scott	Ferrari	289	95 Laps
–	A.Davidson/S.Buemi/K.Nakajima	Toyota	384	Not classified
–	I.Taittinger/R.Striebig/L.Roussel	Morgan/Nissan	292	Retirement
–	T.Graves/M.Rao/R.Merhi	ORECA/Nissan	283	Retirement
–	P.D.Lana/P.Lamy/M.Lauda	Aston Martin	281	Retirement
–	P.Thiriet/M.Beche/R.Hirakawa	ORECA/Nissan	241	Retirement
–	D.Cheng/H-Pin Tung/N.Panciatici	Alpine/Nissan	234	Retirement
–	S.Dolan/J.Dennis/G.van der Garde	Gibson/Nissan	222	Retirement
–	O.Gavin/T.Milner/J.Taylor	Chevrolet	219	Retirement
–	S.Trummer/O.Webb/P.Kaffer	CLM/AER	206	Retirement
–	M.Tuscher/A.Imperatori/D.Kraihamer	Rebellion/AER	200	Retirement
–	G.Bruni/J.Calado/A.P.Guidi	Ferrari	179	Retirement
–	D.Rigon/S.Bird/A.Bertolini	Ferrari	143	Retirement
–	F.Makowiecki/E.Bamber/J.Bergmeister	Porsche	140	Retirement
–	P.Pilet/K.Estre/N.Tandy	Porsche	135	Retirement
–	T.Matsuda/M.Howson/R.Bradley	ORECA/Nissan	116	Retirement
–	C.MacNeil/L.Keen/M.Miller	Porsche	50	Retirement

 

WEC points standings

1 Marc Lieb 94 1 Neel Jani 94 1 Romain Dumas 94 2 Oliver Jarvis 55 2 Lucas di Grassi 55 2 Loic Duval 55 3 Kamui Kobayashi 54 3 Mike Conway 54 3 Stephane Sarrazin 54 4 Marcel Fassler 35 4 Andre Lotterer 35 4 Benoit Treluyer 35 5 Matheo Tuscher 30 5 Dominik Kraihamer 30 5 Alexandre Imperatori 30 6 Nicolas Lapierre 30 6 Gustavo Menezes 30 6 Stephane Richelmi 30 7 Nick Heidfeld 25 7 Nicolas Prost 25 7 Nelson Piquet Jr. 25 8 Roman Rusinov 22.5 8 Rene Rast 22.5 9 Will Stevens 16.5 10 Ryan Dalziel 13 10 Luis Derani 13 11 Victor Shaytar 13 11 Kirill Ladygin 13 11 Vitaly Petrov 13 12 Ricardo Gonzalez 12 12 Bruno Senna 12 12 Filipe Albuquerque 12 14 Nick Leventis 10 14 Jonny Kane 10 14 Danny Watts 10 15 James Rossiter 8.5 15 Oliver Webb 8.5 15 Simon Trummer 8.5 16 Nathanael Berthon 6.5 17 Nicolas Minassian 4.5 17 Maurizio Mediani 4.5 18 Mikhail Aleshin 4 19 Brendon Hartley 3.5 19 Timo Bernhard 3.5 19 Mark Webber 3.5 20 Matt Rao 3 20 Richard Bradley 3 20 Roberto Merhi 3 21 Ed Brown 2 21 Johannes van Overbeek 2 21 Scott Sharp 2 22 Chris Cumming 1 23 Anthony Davidson 1 23 Kazuki Nakajima 1 23 Sebastien Buemi 1 24 Nelson Panciatici 0.5 24 David Cheng 0.5 24 Ho-Pin Tung 0.5 25 Tor Graves 0.5 26 James Jakes 0.5 27 Giedo van der Garde 0.5 27 Simon Dolan 0.5 27 Jake Dennis 0.5 28 Devi Markozov 0 29 Pierre Kaffer 0