In recent years, the 24-hour Le Mans race in France has been a contest between Audi and Peugeot in a markedly charged atmosphere, with overtones of German and French national honour entering the picture.
Peugeot withdrew from this year’s 80th edition but Toyota returned to endurance racing after an absence of several years and were expected to provide a stiff challenge to Audi. Toyota entered two of their new TS030 Hybrid models in the LMP1 class.
Entrants are divided into four classes, LMP1, LMP2, GTE Pro and GTE Am, all racing together. The LMPs are pure racing cars built to specifications laid down in Le Mans regulations and are classified as LMP1 or LMP2 depending on their technical characteristics, weight and power.
The GTEs are based on road-worthy sports or supercars, with the GTE Pro limited to professional drivers while the GTE Am intended for amateurs although one professional driver is allowed in each three-driver team. LMP1s are the fastest, exceeding 330 km/h on the straights, and the overall winner is normally an LMP1.
This year, the race contained a strong element of technical innovation, notably the startlingly revolutionary Nissan-powered DeltaWing, a remarkable vehicle that has broken away from orthodox design parameters and was designed to compete at Le Mans delivering performance comparable with that of its contemporaries with literally half the power, weight, aerodynamic drag and fuel. However, the car was ineligible to win or score points at Le Mans. It showed potential, registering laps not much slower than the LMP2s, but was plagued by gearbox troubles.
Audi entered four cars, two R18 Ultras, and two groundbreaking R18 e-tron quattros with four-wheel drive and a hybrid powertrain deriving power from both diesel fuel and a kinetic energy recovery system (KERS).
The Toyota TS030 Hybrid also had a super capacitor-based hybrid powertrain, which could be used to boost speed or reduce fuel consumption or a mix of both. Lower fuel consumption translates into fewer pit stops for refuelling and less time lost.
The Toyotas started well, placing third and fifth on the starting grid, separating the four Audis. Toyota had two former F1 drivers in their teams, Alexander Wurz in No. 7 and Sebastien Buemi in No. 8, and the Toyotas were battling head to head with the Audis for first place, until in the fifth hour No. 7 took and held the lead for several laps. But this performance came at a cost.
Realistically they were not as fast as the Audis and were using their KERS to boost speed, but were completing one lap less than the Audis between refuelling stops,and arguably, it might have been a better long-term strategy to focus more on reducing consumption. In any case, fate then intervened.
In the sixth hour, while Anthony Davidson, driving Toyota No. 8, was overtaking a Ferrari 458 Italia at the end of the Mulsanne straight, the cars collided, the Toyota somersaulted into the air at around 335 km/h and crashed into the barriers.
Demonstrating the protection provided by the driver’s compartment, Davidson got out of the car on his own but was suffering from shock and back pain, and hospital checks revealed two cracked vertebrae for which three months’ rest was prescribed.
The Ferrari also crashed into the barrier and overturned but its driver was unhurt except for a small cut. The incident added fuel to the ongoing controversy about the problems encountered by the faster cars which continually have to overtake the slower cars, sometimes driven by relatively inexperienced drivers.
The accident brought out the safety car for 75 minutes while the track was cleared of debris and the barriers were repaired. Shortly after the restart, Toyota No. 7 driven by Kazuki Nakajima collided with the DeltaWing and both cars spun off the track and had to retire.
With both Toyotas out of the race, the battle for first place shifted to the Audis with the e-tron quattros gaining the ascendancy over the Ultras. First place was held for many hours by e-tron quattro No. 1 (Faessler/Lotterer/Treluyer, the same team that won last year’s race and for which this year Andre Lotterer gained pole position).
During the night, No. 1 was engaged in a prolonged battle with Audi 2 (Capello/Kristensen/McNish) and the lead alternated between them 14 times over an eight-hour period. Towards the end of the race, McNish went off the track while overtaking another car and the time spent on repairs put car No. 2 out of the running for first place.
At the finish car No.1 was first overall, with car No. 2 second and car No. 4 (Audi R18 Ultra) third. Fourth was Rebellion Racing’s Lola-Toyota, of which one of the drivers was Nick Heidfeld, another former F1 driver. Audi No. 3, the other ultra, placed fifth 12 laps behind the leader.
It was a pity that this car lost time for repairs following excursions off the track because Loic Duval, one of its drivers, showed the car’s potential by recording the fastest lap of the race, averaging 240.289 km/h. The race was another big triumph for Audi, its 11th win since 2000.
Audis took the pole, recorded the fastest lap in the race, and all its four cars made it to the finish, in a race in which 23 of the 56 entrants retired. For the fifth time since 2000, Audi monopolised the whole podium, and also achieved the first win by a hybrid car in a major race.
The LMP2 class had the greatest number of entries and the competition was intense. There were 20 starters, of which 12 finished. In the first six hours Oak Racing’s Morgan-Judd (No. 24) led the class, but it was then overtaken by an Oreca 03-Nissan (No. 48) entered by Murphy Prototypes. After the 11th hour a pattern emerged with Starworks Motorsports’ HPD ARX 03b-Honda (No. 44) leading but hotly pursued by three Oreca 03-Nissans and a Zytek-Nissan battling and changing places among themselves.
At the finish the class was won by HPD ARX 03b-Honda (No. 44), with three Oreca 03-Nissans Nos 46, 49 and 26 placing second, third and fourth respectively (eighth, ninth and tenth overall). First and second in the GTE Pro class were respectively Ferrari 458 Italia (No. 51) and a similar Ferrari (No. 59), with Aston Martin Vantage V8 (No. 97) third and another Ferrari (No. 71) fourth.
The other competitors were the Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1s and Porsche 911 RSR (No. 997)s. The win by (No. 51) entered by Amato Ferrari’s AF Corse was a sweet one because it was the first win in this class by an Italian team since 1981, when the Lancia Beta Montecarlo driven by Michele Alboreto, Eddie Cheever and Carlo Facetti placed first.
To complete the team’s satisfaction, the fourth-placed Ferrari (No. 71) was also entered by AF Corse. No. 51’s win was also highly remarkable for other reasons. Its drivers were former F1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella, Gimmi Bruni and Toni Vilander. On the first day of practice Fisichella lost control and crashed into the barriers at 220 km/h, demolishing the car and distorting the chassis, which needed to be replaced. A new chassis left AF Corse’s headquarters in Piacenza, Italy and arrived the next morning.
Having in the meantime removed from the stricken car everything needed, the AF Corse mechanics started reassembling the vehicle, a monumental task that normally takes several days in a workshop, using specialised equipment. Without the benefit of any such equipment, the mechanics managed it in a staggering 30 hours, earning well-deserved praise even from the opposition. No. 51 started from the back of the grid but, superbly driven by Vilander, was already leading its class after just one hour.
Altogether it held the lead for 19 hours but had no easy task as it was engaged throughout in an all-out battle with the other Ferraris, the Corvettes, Aston Martin and Porsches. A significant factor in No. 51’s win was fuel economy, which sounds paradoxical in a Ferrari, but it was managing up to 16 laps on a tankful compared with 15 by the second-placed Ferrari, entered by Luxury Racing, and 14 laps by the Aston Martin and Corvettes. It therefore lost less valuable time stopping to refuel.
The same marques were present in the GTE Am class but here the tables were turned and the winner was Corvette No. 50 followed by Porsche (No. 67), Ferrari (No. 57), Porsche (No. 79) and Corvette (No. 70).
Odds and ends
• 240,000 spectators came to see the race.
• Ironically Fisichella suffered more damage, grazing his hands and bruising his wrist quite severely when he fell off his bicycle during his daily exercise run on the road, than from his 220 km/h crash during practice.
• Of the winning team, Benoit Treluyer is the 40th Frenchman to win, Andre Lotterer the 28th German and Marcel Faessler, who also won last year, the first Swiss.