Toyota Secures Fifth Consecutive Victory as Fans Flock to Le Mans 24 Hours

Toyota took the chequered flag at the 90th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, claiming a fifth consecutive victory after the team covered over 5,000km and 380 laps of the Circuit de La Sarthe.

The victory for the #8 car marked Brendan Hartley and Sébastien Buemi’s third and fourth Le Mans wins, respectively. At the same time, teammate Ryo Hirakawa was successful in the world-famous endurance race for the first time.

After qualifying for pole position ahead of the #7 Toyota of Jose Maria Lopez, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi, the two GR010 Hybrids pulled away from the rest of the hypercar field and quickly dashed any hopes that one of the Glickenhaus cars or the sole Alpine A480 could challenge for the overall win on speed alone.

Toyota‘s rivals were hoping for drama (who remembers the drama on the last lap of 2016?), but none came as the two leaders had a relatively trouble-free run. The only problem occurred just before the third quarter of the race when the #7 car stopped on the track due to a problem with the hybrid system. Although it managed to get back on the lead lap, the incident decided the race.

With the #709 Glickenhaus of Ryan Briscoe, Richard Westbrook and Franck Mailleux on the final podium spot, the #38 of JOTA – driven by Antonia Felix da Costa, Robert Gonzalez and Will Stevens – took a dominant victory in the LMP2 class.

More than two minutes ahead of the second-placed #9 Prema Orlen of Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz and Lorenzo Colombo, the team also secured third place in the LMP2 class with the #28 of Ed Jones, Jonathan Aberdein and Oliver Rasmussen.

In the Pro category, GTE Corvette had high hopes of winning after claiming the front row in qualifying. Still, none of the C8.Rs made it to the finish as they struggled with reliability issues… and the opponents.

First, the team’s #63 car was forced to retire under darkness after suffering suspension damage. Then, with a quarter of the race left to run, the #64 car was inexplicably flung into the barriers by the #83 LMP2 car of AF Corse on the Mulsanne straight.

This earned the latter a one-minute stop-go penalty and allowed the Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Gianmaria Bruni, Richard Lietz and Frederic Makowiecki to take victory for the Porsche GT team ahead of two AF Corse Ferraris.

Meanwhile, the GTE Am win went to TF Sport’s #33 Aston Martin Vantage driven by Ben Keating, Marco Sorensen and Henrique Chaves.

Further back, Michael Fassbender – who spoke to TG ahead of his Le Mans debut – had an eventful race in the #93 Proton Competition: Overnight, the actor found himself in the tyre wall at the Indianapolis corner, albeit through no fault of his own, after being forced into the gravel by the #61 AF Corse. Despite the damage, Fassbender managed to get his car going again a few minutes later, and his team eventually recovered to finish 51st out of 53 drivers.

Le Mans never disappoints you. And now you all get some sleep.

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