What a finish! Both Audi and Corvette were hard pushed right to the very end at Le Mans this year, and had to earn their victories in LMP1 and GTE respectively. The surviving #2 Audi R18 driven by Benoit Treluyer, Marcel Fassler and Andre Lotterer crossed the line just 13 seconds ahead of the first of the quartet of Peugeot 908s – finishing a battle between the #2 and #9 Peugeot that started 13 hours earlier and ebbed and flowed throughout the night and all the way to the flag.
The #9 Peugeot put up an epic fight and occasionally took the lead during pit stop cycles. Neither car gave any quarter through the traffic: I witnessed plenty of near misses as they carved through the slower GTE cars – exactly the thing that had laid waste to the #1 and #3 R18s earlier in the race.
After heartbreak for the #74 Corvette, which had held the GTE lead for the majority of the race until then, the challenge was taken up by the sister #73 C6R – Tommy Milner was particularly impressive – and they took the flag after 24 hours of racing just a minute ahead of the #51 AF Corse Ferrari which featured ex-F1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella on its driver line-up.
As usual the crowd were pushing at the gates to get onto the track for the podium celebration, but for once there was no ceremonial finish: the leading cars were so close that the final lap was at full racing speed. Once all the finishers were safely through, the gates opened and the crowd flooded the track. It's always a great sight! Stay tuned for more behind the scenes stories from Le Mans coming this week, particularly from the drivers' parade – which had to be one of the most intense things I've ever experienced! For me, 24 hours of sleep is called for…
RESULT:
LMP1
1st: #2 Audi R18 TDi (Fassler/Lotterer/Treluyer) 355 laps
2nd: #9 Peugeot 908 (Lamy/Bourdais/Pagenaud) +13s
3rd: #8 Peugeot 908 (Montagny/Sarrazin/Minassian) +2 laps
4th: #7 Peugeot 908 (Gene/Wurz/Davidson) +4 laps
5th: #10 Peugeot 908 HDI-FAP (Lapierre/Duval/Panis) +16 laps
LMP2
1st (8th overall): #41 Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan (Ojjeh/Lombard/Kimber-Smith) +29 laps
2nd (9th): #26 Signatech Nissan Oreca 03 (Mailleux/Ordonez/Ayari) +35 laps
3rd (10th): #33 Level 5 Lola HPD (Tucker/Bouchut/Barbosa) +36 laps
GTE
1st (11th): #73 Chevrolet Corvette C6R (Garcia/Milner/Beretta) +41 laps
2nd (13th): #51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia (Fisichella/Bruni/Vilander) +41 laps
3rd (15th): #56 BMW M3 GT (Priaulx/Muller/Hand) +42 laps
4th (16th): #77 Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche 911 RSR (Lieb/Lietz.Henzler) +43 laps
5th (17th): #76 Imsa Matmut Porsche 911 RSR (Pilet/Narac/Armindo) +44 laps
GTE-AM
1st (21st overall): #50 Larbre Competition Corvette C6R (Bornhauser/Canal/Gardel) +53 laps
2nd (21st): #70 Larbre Competition Porsche 911 RSR (Bourret/Gibon/Belloc) +54 laps
3rd (26th): #68 Robertson Racing Ford GT (Robertson/Robertson/Murry) +70 laps
Jonathan Moore
OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS
Really poor result from Porsche this time.
It was fantastic race!
seeing the picture of the crowd gives me tha chills in a good way
Nailbiting to the end but Audi and Corvette proved why they are where they are. Glad to finally see a race all the way through without the parade lap ending as seen in recent years. Also good to see ALMS regulars Level 5 and Robertson Racing make the podium in each of their classes (Especially Robertson Racing with the husband and wife drivers celebrating their wedding anniversary this weekend, what a wedding present that must be). This year's 24 hr of Le Mans did not disappoint.
Audi and Corvette totally deserved the wins! Congratulations to Fassler, Lotterer, Treluyer, Beretta, Milner, and Garcia! Both teams came down from losing their senior cars to win anyways with the juniors! What a great Le Mans!
also, congrats to Zytek-Nissan with Ojjeh, Smith, and Lombard for winning LMP2! Guess GT Academy (Ordonez) couldn't pull it off. One last shout out to Larbre Competition for winning GTE-AM! Very nice to see Corvette with Le Man's first double category win since 1997
hells ya good job audi and corvette i was rutting for both these guys and they had a great finnish
This was awesome. This was the first ever 24 Hours of Le Mans I've witnessed - not even in person. I watched about 10 hours of the race at work with a little window streaming the race from the view of the Corvette
especially since both drivers seem to be okay and haven't suffered any serious injuries.
The Corvettes... wow, I really absolutely did not expect - and for a while couldn't believe, nor did I realize - that they'd actually sit in FIRST place for just about the entire race. The two R18's crashing was something I could've done without, but makes for excellent conversation
Ditto to Jiyakku, when I found out the Ford GT (who I was rooting for without knowing about the husband/wife driver line up) was a husband-and-wife team, that really put a smile on my face, and to think that its how they celebrated their WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. Wow, what a wife, what a life. Bravo to them.
Audi fought real hard, as did Corvette obviously. I still can't help but feel for the R18s, such beautiful cars (not even sure how much they cost) wrecked because of - what I heard - amateur drivers.... can anyone shed some light on this? I mean, if they're "amateur", why were they even given permission to participate in this race?
PS: I'm planning on going to Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, anyone coming with?
Congrats to Milner on his first LM win! it's crazy how fast things are going for him
Congratulations to Audi and Corvette; props especially to Audi for showing a calm attitude whilst having to put up with dirty driving from the 908's.
this was awesome both of my teams just dominated, they arent superior for no reason!
what a great result for Audi, the battle was fantastic.
GT didn't get much air time.
Hooray for Tommy Milner
Have to comment, I thought your coverage this year has been quite lacking, not up to the usual Speedhunter standards
Peugeot should have sacrificed one or two of their LMPs in order to put more pressure and strain on the Audi LMP so it would possibly break down, alas they kept to their fuel consumption strategy. Could it have possibly been because of fear of a repeat of last year? Lord knows that Peugeot had enough LMPs to do the pressure strategy with, especially after Audi lost those two cars. Very interesting Le mans, one of the strongest GT fields ever in a le mans race in terms of manufacturer backing. I wish manufacturers would drop out of Formula 1 in order to do more sports car racing, but alas I fear all these Audi victories scare away other manufacturers, which is why I have been rooting for Peugeot to win. Then again the rumor that Toyota is going to return is very strong. Aston is still continuing even though their prototype had nowhere near the development time it needed nor the budget it needed, rather sad, maybe they will be stronger next year. Honda might be preparing a full on effort. Nick Wirth certainly hasn't quit even though Honda acquired the ARX01E from them.
I hope the rest of the year and 2012 hold many great surprises for us sportscar fans., and conrats to the winners of Le Mans 2011.
wow that was the 1st Le Mans race where i actually followed the race properly and boy was it a cracking race!!!
Sunday was an EPIC day for Motorsport!!!!
especially with the F1 being held for over 1 and a half hours and then Button who took the win from Vettel on the last lap coming from the opposite end of the grid!!
Today was a goooooooooood day! well done to Audi and Button in particular and Hamilton...tutut!!
Congrats to Corvette Racing!!! How about some 24Hours love in the Desktops section?
Iain, the coverage is comming, give them a break, this race was sooo full of action, that if they went to the pressroom too much, they would have missed alot of action.
A mate and me say the race together, and were heartbroken when McNish went out (we're danes, so naturally we were rooting for Audi, the #3 and Corvette). To see Treluyer, Fassler and Lotterer having the drive of their life was amasing!
Scenes like Treluyer passing the #74 Corvette on the outside, with the #8 Pug. taking the inside before being overtaken by Treluyer. Will always be imprinted in my mind.
What an amasing race, with the most well deserved wins in almost every class.
@ SkipSkovhugger
You're exactly right on all your points!
great pictures Jon! I slept all the way home (10 hour flight) and then 13 hours straight afterwards! Great to see you at Le Mans and hope to see you at Petit.
June 17th
So, is there more coverage?
Ticker tape, the streets lined with people cheering and shouting, drivers running down the sides of the