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The 82nd Running of the Le Mans 24 Hours

By - June 18, 2014

Le Mans 2014 2
This was an exciting year for Le Mans. The biggest news was the return of Porsche with a full factory effort in the prototype class. Audi was looking to continue their winning streak. Toyota was mounting a fierce challenge for the top spot after finishing second, once again, last year. Nissan entered a hybrid prototype that can run as a gas/electric hybrid or as an all-electric car,that looks strangely similar to the DeltaWing race car. The American Corvette Team looked to be the favorites in the GTE Pro class despite GM seemingly recalling every car they’ve made since 1962.

As with any race, weather, fatigue, and lady luck are some of the things even the most experienced and well prepared teams cannot account for. Friday’s test session was cut short when the No. 1 Audi R18 e-tron Quattro of Loic Duval crashed hard. The Joest Audi Factory team used their reverse engineered alien technology to build a car overnight. In the next day’s practice session it was Lucas di Grassi’s turn to crash test the No. 1 car against the guardrails. Once again the Joest Audi team came through and had the car race ready in a ridiculously short time.
Porsche’s return to the endurance race they dominated for three decades was not exactly reminiscent of their former glory, although the No. 20 Porsche did lead at one point in the race, turbo failure would eventually claim both cars.

The race saw very heavy rain for about the first 90 minutes. During the downpour, there was a crash on the Mulsanne straight. The pole sitting No. 8 Toyota spun, clipping the back of the No. 3 Audi. The low visibility in the wet caused the No. 81 AF Course Ferrari 458 Italia GTE Am to ram the Audi, ending the race for both the Ferrari and the Audi.

Although the Delta wing shaped Nissan hybrid retired only an hour after the start of the race, is did find notability by setting the fastest lap time for an electric powered vehicle at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Friday’s practice session. This was accomplished when driver, Satoshi Motoyama turned off power from the Nissan’s 400 hp Turbo charged three cylinder engine to run the car solely on electric power. He achieved Nissan’s goal of reaching 300 km/h or 186.41 mph.

Here are the top three finishers in all four classes at the 82nd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

LMP1 Prototypes
No.2    Audi Sport Team Joest     Audi R18 e-tron Quattro    Treluyer/ Lotterer/ Fassler
No. 1   Audi Sport Team Joest     Audi R18 e-tron Quattro    Kristensen/di Grassi/ Gene
No. 8   Toyota Racing                      Toyota TS040 Hybrid         Davidson/ Buemi/ Lapierre
LMP2 Prototypes
No. 38   Jota Sport                            Zytek Z11SN Nissan             Dolan/ Tincknell/ Turvey
No. 46   Thiriet by TDS Racing     Ligier JS Nissan                     Thiriet/ Badey/ Gommendy
No. 36   Signatech Alpine              Alpine A450b Nissan          Panciatici/ Webb/ Chatin
LM GTE-Pro
No. 51    AF Course                          Ferrari 458 Italia                   Bruni/ Vilander/ Fisichella
No. 73   Corvette Racing              Corvette C7R                           Magnussen/ Garcia/ Taylor
No. 92    Team Manthey                Porsche 911 RSR                    Holzer/ Makowiecki/ Lietz
LM GTE-Am
No. 95   Aston Martin Racing      V8 Vantage                              Poulsen/ Heinemeier-Hansson/ Thiim
No. 88   Proton Competition       Porsche 911 GT3 RSR           Ried/ Bachler/ Al Qubaisi
No. 61   AF Course                           Ferrari 458 Italia                   Perez-Companc/ Cioci/ Venturi

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