After a long and beautiful battle with Audi, Porsche has taken overall and LMP1 class victories at Le Mans in only its second participation with the 919 Hybrid race car. The German carmaker’s 17th overall Le Mans victory was taken in style, with a one-two finish. No other brand has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans so many times.
The surprise winner was car No. 19, driven by Porsche’s most inexperienced lineup composed of Earl Bamber, Nico Hülkenberg and Nick Tandy. The automaker’s favorite entry, car No. 17 driven by Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber, came second, followed by last year’s winner, the No. 7 Audi driven by Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler.
Fourth place went to the Audi No. 8, while Porsche’s third car (Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb) came in fifth. Toyota’s No. 2 car finished sixth, followed by Audi’s No. 9 car and Toyota’s other car (No. 1), meaning that the top three teams finished the race with all their cars.
It was a different story with Nissan’s GT-R LM Nismo, as only the No. 22 car crossed the finish line. The other two cars had mechanical problems: No. 21 car retired due to a suspension failure, while No. 23 was hit by a gearbox malfunction.
Victory in the LMP2 class went to KCMG’s Oreca/Nissan driven by Nicolas Lapierre, Richard Bradley and Matt Howson, while in the GTE Pro class, the sole surviving Chevrolet Corvette C7.R managed to take the victory.
In the GTE Am class AF Corse’s Ferrari 458 Italia won, taking advantage of the No. 98 Aston Martin’s crash just 45 minutes before the end of the race. This also gave second place to Dempsey Racing – Proton’s Porsche 911 RSR, the team co-owned by actor Patrick Dempsey – who was also one of the drivers. You can find the full list of results here.
As always at Le Mans, this year’s 24-hour marathon was a truly spectacular race, and the following video highlights will no doubt convince you of that.