This year’s edition of the Le Mans 24H race will not necessarily be remembered for the actual racing part, because it has been marred by the tragic death of Aston Martin driver Allan Simonsen, 34. Still, even after the announcement of his passing, the Aston Martin team drove on, eventually taking third place in the GTE Pro class, dedicating their victory to Simonsen who was racing in the GT class.

Audi’s diesel-hybird R18s were still the most consistent cars throughout the entire race, despite the fact that the Toyotas recorded better singular times during qualifying and practice. The winning car, which was driven by the Duval/Kristensen/McNish trio, took the lead at 21:43 local time, before crossing the line at 15:00 the next day.

Also, despite their win not being the big event at Le Mans this year, Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management for Audi was very pleased, and added: “We owe the twelfth victory of our brand at Le Mans to the consistent, innovative spirit of our engineers, the unconditional commitment of the entire team and the skills and strong nerves of our drivers. On behalf of Audi, I extend my sincere congratulations on this success to all of them.”

The advantage of hybrid power is clear, as both Audi and Toyota are using electrification to make their vehicles more competitive, and they are succeeding, as the final standings at the end of the race eloquently show. Now we are waiting for Nissan’s all-electric Le Mans racer to make its driving debut, though we expect it to be silent and not the most spectacular car to watch onboard footage from.

Scroll down and check out our quick selection of highlight videos we found on YouTube after the race, if you haven’t spent far too much time watching it this weekend, in which case you will definitely know most of the situations created.

By Andrei Nedelea

Correction: Aston Martin took third place in the GTE Pro class and not in the LMP1 class

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