Sports Cars 85th Running Of The 24 Hours Of Le Mans, 17-18 June 2017

When I saw the Oreca leading the race, I was hoping for something like a 1995 finish: a lower-class entry pointing the big guys of the race and laughing at them. That rear end change for the #38 probably costed them the win, but oh well, history has been written today anyway.

 

Deserve doesn't belong on a race track. If you win, lucky or otherwise, you have earned it.

I hope Toyota realise that Lapierre cost them the win and never let him near one of their cars again though. If he had babied the car back to the pits they would have won, reliability and Lapierre stints notwithstanding, he's fast but LMP1 is too much for him. He should stick to LMP2 instead. He's pretty good in one of those.

 

Once I watched a marathon run by 5 runners. Three died and two suffered heart attacks repaired with a new transplanted heart, and one of them won. Not the most impressive marathon I ever saw, but yeah, I guess the winner deserved his medal.

 

The entire race is now on the official website to watch for anyone who missed part/all of it due to how crap the web service was.

Except the 9th hour.

 

What a race.

Honestly I would have loved to see a P2 take the overall victory after the number 1 Porsche broke down, simply for the sheer unexpectedness of it, but at the same time I doubt anyone could have seen a P1 having to battle a P2 to last hour of the race for the overall victory coming at the start of the race. In hindsight it's even better than the close race between Toyota and Porsche that I was hoping to see. The GTE Pro race was magnificent as well, so there's hardly anything I can complain about this year's LM24, well apart from Eurosport adverts of course.

Congratulations to number 2 Porsche, 38 Jackie Chan DC Racing, and 97 Aston Martin.

 

I remember seeing this happen during the race. Basically there was a person that waved the Toyota out of the pit lane without waiting for the safety car to come by.

Sounds like they are saying that between the team saying don't go, and the "fake" marshal saying go. They burnt up the clutch because of it.

http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/vasselon-frustrated-with-toyotas-missed-opportunity/

 

I am going to hunt down Vincent Capillaire and kick his ass!

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Why would he even do that?

 

I just read the story behind it, what an idiot this guy is.

 

That driver's sporting licences should be reviewed in the harshest terms - that's insane. I've never seen anything like it.

 

That's outrageous, he shouldn't have been allowed to do that. In hindsight, you could say he cost the #7 the race and the win, as the #7 burnt it's clutch in the confusion...

 

Makes sense, clutches are supposed to be very hard to broke down and I can't remember reading that someone lost a race because of wrecked one.

 

Nevermind, please delete...

 

That looks dodgy, he soon leaves when the damage has been done.

 

If that's true, you've got to be kidding me. What was there to gain by doing that?

Even so, I can only have so much sympathy for Toyota. Yes, they had some tough breaks but they had hand in their defeat as well. You can't have one car having an early mechanic problem that takes them out of real contention. You can't have a driver burning up the clutch, regardless of the situation. You can't have a driver going too fast after a puncture knowing they are the team's last real hope for a victory. Maybe it's just me but I got the impression that Toyota overall had too much focus on speed on a day when they could've easily won via reliability.

Obviously, it's easier to say that in retrospect but it wouldn't surprise me if they have bulletproof cars next year only to lose on raw speed.

 

So, I saw the video and Kobayashi doesn't seem to be jumping on and off the clutch to the point of stressing it as implied by Toyota. The behavior of the driver in orange is dodgy as hell, though. It should be looked by officials.

 

It of course won't change anything but I really want to hear Capillaire's reason for doing that. Looks very suspicious and as if he hoped the Toyota would leave and incur a penalty.

 

http://www.racer.com/wec-le-mans/item/141564-akio-toyoda-issues-comment-on-lm24

Some healing words I suppose, but Akio at some point must get tired of giving words of comfort instead of words of victory. Sigh...maybe next year...

 

You are right, that it still pretty much still fell in their hands, but this is just added to the story of their 24 Hours of Le Mans. Toyota just have the worst luck, and self control to minimize damage, when it comes to things going wrong. Like that puncture, and then rushing back to the pits, only to destroy the car.

Also, they were about a second slower than Porsche on their pit stops during the race. To me, it just feels like Porsche and even Audi, were better at pit work than the Toyota is.

 

Stoked to be a Kiwi at the moment, another LeMans victory (and dominating V8's and Americas Cup sailing too)
As happy as I am that Bamber and Hartley got their win, a part of me is sad due to Toyota having another shocker .

A good but crazy race, so many ups and downs but enjoyed every minute of it

As a Toyota fan I guess I have to say, maybe next year, we got to get one soon. In the mean time I have a year of saying Kiwi's are LeMans champions again

 

I will say that "Take No Prisioners", Corvette Racing's motto, was well taken by Porsche today. They didn't give up or back down after their troubles. They kept fighting to the bitter end and won the race with tenacity and perseverance.

Even Corvette Racing themselves lived up to their motto today by limping home the 63 home. I still think they should have put in Garcia over Taylor, but they didn't quit after the tire failure and took brought back a car that easily could have potentially retired to the podium (yes, it was the last lap, but the damage was pretty extensive regardless).

There's a reason both marques are successful at the track. Both squads exemplify the "finish at all costs" mentality that is needed at the hallowed circuit and did so today. One team added to its already historic victory total and the other probably didn't get the result it wanted to get, but both still pushed to the end with the circumstances that the race dealt them and overcame them by pushing the negatives aside and fighting to finish the event at all costs. Thus, both teams truly did live up to the famous motto of one of the most successful GT teams in the past 20 years.

 

I stayed up until about 11:46 watching a stream of the race on Youtube... I'm not even tired.
Anyway, I desperately wanted an LMP2 to win but the Porsche LMP1 was just too quick. I knew that with 2 hours to go the #38 was going to be caught. Still, at least two LMP2's were on the overall podium this year. I don't think anyone expected that. Also, I feel as though LMP1 needs an overhaul to attract more teams and decrease engine problems. I feel as though the hybrid systems are very complicated and expensive, hence why only a handful of cars are raced. They should make the class more accessible for more manufacturers in order to encourage competition and give the fans a bigger spectacle. When I went to Le Mans in 2010 there were 4 teams competing - Peugeot, Audi, Aston Martin and Rebellion for a total of 10 cars. None were hybrids and there were fewer retirements. I think it should be this way again.

Edit: I think there were 5 teams that year - the fifth one being Drayson Racing I believe...

 

Just be glad there is a potential for next year, lesser manufactures would have quit after probably the 2015 failures.

 

Ofcourse, but Toyota should seriously consider their next car to be easily serviceable. You can't always gamble the car to be 100% reliable, and it's very prudent to build a car that is easy and fast to work on. I mean, we had 16 years of Audi showing this to us...

 

Who would think the brand that makes the most reliable road cars make the most unreliable race cars lol.

 

I hav a porsch but I so wanted Toyota to win

But I do think Porsche deserved their victory this year, well fought.

 

The class is highly accessible. It's the only series in the world to have open regs for the top class...

Hybrids are a thing because it helps understand electrical power and potential alternatives for road cars, then what currently exist. Le Mans and by extension the WEC isn't here for just the fans in reality it's here for the Manufactures to run glorified R&D and get PR marketing and a shiny trophy as well. With the LMP1-L getting a large reboot you will see the non-hybrids race again.

Though I will say there have been plenty of years where non-hybrid units failed just as badly and often. Picking a random time you remember doesn't reflect the true state of hybrid vs non-hybrid. If we are to actually advance motor racing these things should be attempted or we'll get cars that don't ever progress and run the risk of killing off many series because there isn't a point if there isn't a return for the manufactures investing.

EDIT:
Also the year you mention had 3 cars from the top contender see engine failures, while the Audi as usual played the long game and lived to win it.

Only five LMP1 cars finished out of seventeen. It's also currently a more dominated manufacture series, than it was in 2010.

None of these cars (other than GTE it seems) are easily serviceable. Toyota always seems to have a critical failure that is beyond something that can be fixed and sent back out to challenge for a win later in the race or podium. Wiring loom failure, overall ICE failures, Most of the issues I recall from Audi were usually turbo related (or just being slow and steady) and so it didn't take much to fix. Porsche is similar, they're pretty solid for a car that has an engine as a stressed member running a 24 hour race. This hybrid unit failure was quite rare and obviously attributed to the heat.

 

Especially because the Alpine was on track to making the overall podium, but made one small mistake in the final hour which lost them two podiums. Even if the #35 didn't go off, the Rebellions had more pace. Infact, the Alpine did amazingly well considering it was never particularly fast (just consistent). I expected them to podium P2 at best, to be honest.

A huge congrats to the #2, proud for Brendon Hartley to finally take his first win, his stint in the latter half of the race was simply fantastic. It was a manly tear moment seeing Mark Webber coming out to award them as a Porsche representative.

Congrats to the #38, which was quite simply dominant.

Congrats to the #97 for winning the 24 hour race that became a short sprint race in the final stages.

And congrats to the #27, which I didn't even notice until now, so I can't really say anything more.

 

Mark Webber is now the only Porsche 919 racer to have not won Le Mans.