senor honda

LM24: Heartbreak for Toyota, joy for Porsche, Ford

Sunday, 19 June 2016


Marshall Pruett (words & images)
Toyota was in line to score the biggest upset at Le Mans since rival brand Mazda became the first Japanese manufacturer to win the great 24 Hour race in 1991 – until an even bigger upset occurred in the final minutes.
The #5 TS050 led the race by 1m24s inside the final 10 minutes, but with just over five minutes of the 24 hours remaining Kazuki Nakajima slowed, reporting that he had no power.
As the Toyota attempted to crawl around to the finish, Neel Jani blasted by in the #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid to grab the lead and complete one more lap to take an unexpected victory, extending the marque's Le Mans win record to 18.
"I can't believe it," Jani told RACER. "But my heart is so heavy for [Toyota]."
The Toyota team, at the time of publication, had yet to confirm the source of the No. 5's problems, but a Toyota driver was overheard saying it was caused by a turbo failure. Nakajima initially stopped the car on the pit straight, but eventually was able to complete his final lap in 11m53s, crossing the line second. However, the lap was ruled too slow to make it eligible to be classified. That promoted the #6 Toyota to second, and enabled Audi to maintain its record of always finishing on the podium since its debut at Le Mans in 1999.


It was also an amazing weekend for American entries or drivers in three of the four classes representing the Stars and Stripes.
Ford came, saw, and conquered Le Mans on the 50th anniversary of its first win with the GT40 model in 1966 as the pole-winning No. 68 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing GT driven by Dirk Muller, Joey Hand and Sebastien Bourdais made first-time winners of the tight-knit trio.
"It's an unbelievable feeling to be able to make this happen," said Bourdais. "There was so much effort, so much emotion, and to be the one that wins the trophy to give to the Ford family and everyone involved is very special. Everything aligned for us today – the history, the Ferrari/Ford battle, 50 years on and the Ford family being here. To come out on top of all that is an amazing feeling."
An announced crowd of 263,500 spectators witnessed Ford's thorough spanking of the opposition, although the No. 82 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 put up a strong fight until Toni Vilander spun in the final hours and lost almost half a lap. Second was still possible until the car was called into the pit with 10 minutes remaining because one of the leader lights were not functioning correctly. The team opted not to serve the penalty so it could have the honor of climbing the podium. One driver in the foyer next to the podium reported seeing the Risi team and ACO officials having a rather heated discussion before the Ferrari drivers were allowed to take their place next to the Ford drivers.
RACER has learned that Ford protested Risi for the malfunctioning Ferrari leader lights, and Risi protested the leading No. 68 Ford for passing under the yellow. In response, both teams were assessed a nominal time penalty that would not move P1 and P2 behind P3 – in other words it's a wash, so the existing podium order will stand.

LMP2 featured the most cars and the most carnage as spins, crashes and retirements became the story across 24 hours. The No. 36 Signatech Alpine team (using an Alpine-branded ORECA 05-Nissan) survived the never-ending rumble as Nicolas Lapierre, Stephane Richelmi and Californian Gustavo Menezes won by a lap over the No. 26 G-Drive Racing ORECA 05-Nissan and a wider margin over the No. 37 BR01-Nissan.
And in GTE-Am, another American team – Scuderia Corsa, with an all-American lineup of Townsend Bell, Bill Sweedler and Jeff Segal – captured the win in their No. 62 Ferrari F458.
"It went exactly according to plan," Bell told RACER. "What an amazing feeling."

More cruel ironies for Toyota: 44 cars were classified as finishers in the provisional results, a new record for the Le Mans 24 Hours. The previous record was 42. And, until the last-minute heartbreak, Toyota's Anthony Davidson, Sebastian Buemi and Nakajima had won the brutally expensive game of LMP1-Hybrid Reliability Roulette as their #5 5 TS050 was the only entry in the six-deep class to make it to the final minutes without requiring extended service or repairs.
The Franco-German TS050 chassis and Japanese drivetrain proved to be a near match for the staggering pace set by the 919 Hybrids, and declared itself the class leader in fuel economy as the 2.4-liter twin-turbo V6 engine and 8 megajoules hybrid system pushed its drivers one lap farther per stint.
That extra lap, in concert with dogged performances behind the wheel, transformed the complexion of the race. Defending overall winners Porsche had the fastest car in the 84th running of the great endurance event, but minor problems, including a nighttime tire puncture, turned the tide in Toyota's favor before fate cruelly intervened.
Audi and Porsche were the favorites heading into the event, but grave reliability issues took three of their four cars out of contention in the six-car class, and just for good measure, the second Toyota spent four laps in the pits in the final hours, without which a possible 1-2 finish was on the cards.
Toyota's massive disappointment comes 22 years after American Jeff Krosnoff, Italian Mauro Martini and Ireland's Eddie Irvine had the race in their hands and suffered a gearbox problem that dropped their twin-turbo V8 94C-V to second overall.
The lasting image of the race for Audi was seeing both of its R18 e-tron quattros backed into the garage. The German's F1-inspired chassis with its impossible packaging of electronics and hybrid drive components proved to be the m