24h of Le Mans 2015: Porsche brings home 1-2 victory

[Jack Hunsley]

Porsche have won their first 24 Hours of Le Mans since 1998 as they outlasted the #7 Audi to record a 1-2 as the #19 car took the checkered flag.

Porsche's victory marks the first non-Audi victory at Le Mans since 2009, whilst Nico Hulkenberg and Earl Bamber both became the first rookies to win the race since 1998.

The race itself was a case of swings and roundabouts but superb night stints from Tandy and Hulkenberg allowed the #19 to make up time lost in an early safety car period, before three Audi machines ran into trouble in the early hours of the morning which gave Porsche a sizeable lead.

Behind the #19 car was the #17 car of Webber, Bernhard and Hartley who fell out of contention early in the race after serving a one minute penalty for a yellow flag infringement, whilst the #7 Audi completed the podium a further three laps down after losing bodywork which forced several unscheduled stops.

Outside of the top three the pole sitting #18 Porsche ran into several problems across the 24 hours, most notably twice hitting the tyre wall at Mulsanne corner, whilst the #8 Audi crashed early in the race after making contact whilst trying to lap one of the AF Corse GT cars.

Toyota meanwhile were almost completely anonymous throughout the race eventually coming home 9 and 10 laps down respectively, Rebellion had a nightmare race with a best finish of 18th for the #13 entry. Team ByKolles were 39th and Nissan only got one car to flag, 154 laps down on the #19 Porsche, after a late race engine failure took the #23 car out of the race.

In LMP2 there was little the teams could do to get close to the #47 KCMG, even after it stopped twice on track before firing once again, as the Hong Kong based team brought home a commanding victory.

Behind KCMG was JOTA Sport, who managed to pip the G-Drive car of Rusinov, Canal and Bird after Oliver Turvey pulled out a nice overtake in the 22nd hour after having spent the first hour in the pitlane with a gearbox issue.

In the GT classes Corvette took the honours in a scrappy GTE Pro race as every one of their fellow Pro cars suffered mechanical issues.

When they actually had cars to race it was Aston Martin who proved their strongest contender, at least before the #97 suffered an engine failure during the night and the #99 crashed into an LMP2 car in the very early hours of the morning.

This left Corvette to fight with the tenacious #51 AF Corse, but when the Ferrari suffered a gearbox problem very late in the race this left Corvette with a 5 lap advantage over the second #71 entry.

Finally in GTE Am there was late drama as the #98 Aston Martin, which has dominated the WEC season so far and held a truly commanding lead during the race, crashed out with Paul Dalla Lana at the wheel with just forty minutes left on the clock, gifting class victory the #72 SMP entry instead.

SMP lead home the Patrick Dempsey backed Porsche car which recorded it's first podium finish of the year by holding off a tough challenge from the #62 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari who had to settle for third.

2015 24 Hours of Le Mans Official Results

1. LMP1 - #19 Porsche Team (Hülkenberg, Bamber, Tandy)
2. LMP1 - #17 Porsche Team (Bernhard, Webber, Hartley) - +1 Lap
3. LMP1 - #7 Audi Sport Team Joest (Lotterer, Fässler, Treluyer) - +3 Laps
4. LMP1 - #8 Audi Sport Team Joest (Di Grassi, Duval, Jarvis) - +3 Laps
5. LMP1 - #18 Porsche Team (Dumas, Jani, Lieb) - +4 Laps
6. LMP1 - #2 Toyota Racing (Wurz, Sarrazin, Conway) - +9 Laps
7. LMP1 - #9 Audi Sport Team Joest (Albuquerque, Bonanomi, Rast) - +9 Laps
8. LMP1 - #1 Toyota Racing (Davidson, Buemi, Nakajima) - +10 Laps
9. LMP2 - #47 KCMG (Howson, Bradley, Lapierre) - +37 Laps
10. LMP2 - #38 JOTA Sport (Dolan, Turvey, Evans) - +38 Laps
11. LMP2 - #26 G-Drive Racing (Rusinov, Canal, Bird) - +38 Laps
12. LMP2 - #28 G-Drive Racing (Yacamán, González, Derani) - +42 Laps
13. LMP2 - #48 Murphy Prototypes (Chandhok, Berthon, Patterson) - +48 Laps
14. LMP2 - #27 SMP Racing (Mediani, Minassian, Markozov) - +56 Laps
15. LMP2 - #31 Extreme Speed Motorsports (Brown, Fogarty, Van Overbeek) - +56 Laps
16. LMP2 - #45 Ibañez Racing (Ibañez, Bellarosa, Perret) - +58 Laps
17. GTE Pro - #64 Corvette Racing-GM (Gavin, Milner, Taylor) - +59 Laps
18. LMP1 - #13 Rebellion Racing (Kraihamer, Imperatori, Abt) - +59 Laps
19. LMP2 - #29 Pegasus Racing (Roussel, Cheng, Tung) - +59 Laps
20. GTE Am - #72 SMP Racing (Shaytar, Bertolini, Basov) - +61 Laps
21. GTE Pro - #71 AF Corse (Rigon, Calado, Beretta) - +64 Laps
22. GTE Am - #77 Dempsey Racing-Proton (Dempsey, Long, Seefried) - +65 Laps
23. GTE Am - #62 Scuderia Corsa (Sweedler, Bell, Segal) - +66 Laps
24. LMP1 - #12 Rebellion Racing (Prost, Heidfeld, Beche)- +66 Laps
25. GTE Pro - #51 AF Corse (Bruni, Vilander, Fisichella) - +66 Laps
26. GTE Am - #83 AF Corse (Perrodo, Collard, Águas) - +66 Laps
27. GTE Pro - #95 Aston Martin Racing (Nygaard, Sørensen, Thiim) - +66 Laps
28. LMP2 - #30 Extreme Speed Motorsport (Sharp, Dalziel, Hansson) - +66 Laps
29. LMP2 - #35 OAK Racing (Nicolet, Merlin, Maris) - +67 Laps
30. GTE Pro - #91 Porsche Team Manthey (Lietz, Christensen, Bergmeister) - +69 Laps
31. GTE Am - #61 AF Corse (Mann, Gianmaria, Cressoni) - +69 Laps
32. GTE Am - #98 Aston Martin Racing (Dalla Lana, Lamy, Lauda) - +73 Laps
33. LMP2 - #40 Krohn Racing (Krohn, Jönsson) - +73 Laps
34. LMP2 - #37 SMP Racing (Aleshin, A. Ladygin, K. Ladygin) - +73 Laps
35. GTE Am - #68 Team AAI (H.C. Chen, Vannelet, Parisy) - +74 Laps
36. GTE Pro - #99 Aston Martin Racing V8 (Rees, MacDowall, Stanaway) - +76 Laps
37. GTE Am - #66 JMW Motorsport (Alfaisal, Giermaziak, Avenatti) - +76 Laps
38. GTE Am - #67 Team AAI (J. S. Chen, Kapadia, Maassen) - +79 Laps
39. LMP1 - #4 Team ByKolles (Trummer, Monteiro, Kaffer) - +136 Laps
40. LMP1 - #22 Nissan Motorsport (Tincknell, Buncombe, Krumm) - +154 Laps
41. LMP2 - #34 OAK Racing (Cumming, Vanthoor) - RET
42. GTE Am - #53 Riley Motorsports-TI Auto (Bleekemolen, Keating, Miller) - RET
43. LMP2 - #42 Strakka Racing (Leventis, Kane, Watts) - RET
44. GTE Am - #55 AF Corse (Cameron, Griffin, Mortimer) - RET
45. LMP1 - #23 Nissan Motorsports (Pla, Mardenborough, Chilton) - RET
46. LMP2 - #46 Thiriet by TDS Racing (Thiriet, Badey, Gommendy) - RET
47. GTE Am - #96 Aston Martin Racing (Goethe, Hall, Castellacci) - RET
48. LMP2 - #43 Team SARD Morand (Webb, Ragues, Amberg) - RET
49. LMP1 - #21 Nissan Motorsport (Shulzhitskiy, Ordóñez, Matsuda) - RET
50. LMP2 - #36 Signatech Alpine (Panciatici, Chatin, Capillaire) - RET
51. GTE Pro - #97 Aston Martin Racing (Turner, Mücke, Bell) - RET
52. GTE Am - #50 Larbre Competition (Roda, Ruberti, Poulsen) - RET
53. LMP2 - #41 Greaves Motorsport (Hirsch, Lancaster, Wirdheim) - RET
54. GTE Am - #88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing (Ried, Bachler, Al Qubaisi) - RET
55. GTE Pro - #92 Porsche Team Manthey (Pilet, Makowiecki, Henzler) - RET
56. GTE Pro - #63 Corvette Racing-GM (Magnussen, Garcia, Briscoe) - DNS

 

[Ignazio Pinella]

What a great race, so happy for a non-Audi win and for the "baby driver" win! grats also to LaPierre for his win and to Dempsey, I went emotional with all of those guys and teams for their effort!
I just have a conflictual feeling about GTE Pro, I love the C7.R, is one of my preferred car overall, but by being Italian I always root for the #51 AF Course with Fisico, Gimmi and Tony. They did a great job during night backing up the time left on the ground for the incident early in the afternoon with the mess for the yellow zone. To end a race like that after backing up from 6th to 1st and extending the lead was a big disappointment for me, but I love corvette and with all the issue they had over the week (#63/withdrawal, glad Jan is ok) I "kinda" feel happy for them.

Anyway, I'm really happy of "being part" (only as a spectator) of this wonderful week, now I'm a little sad that it's all over, but hey, I can dream of be there next year, watching all of those car screaming!
And would really love an Italian effort over the LMP1 category, maybe not directly with Ferrari but maybe with Alfa/Maserati?! Yeah, dreams, that's what we are made of...

 

[johnnymat]

A really outstanding and hard fought race. I was happy to see the Corvette win. They got off to a bad start when they lost the #63 car earlier in the week and then they didn't qualify well. Well done!

 

[Cosimo]

Amazing race! What I didn't understand is Nissan and their GT-R LM...
Their best pace was 3:39. Did they think they would compete with Audi and Porsche? Were they preparing for next year? Any idea?

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Amazing race! What I didn't understand is Nissan and their GT-R LM...
Their best pace was 3:39. Did they think they would compete with Audi and Porsche? Were they preparing for next year? Any idea?

They didn't have any hybrid power at all. Which also means, there was nothing there to help with braking. Which put more strain on the brakes of the car (They changed after only 6 hours). However, they did have to have the whole pack installed in the car, due to regulations. This also meant that they had FWD only, and no strain being put on the special-made rear tyres. Those tyres were made with the idea of having 4-500 HP of power being applied to them, and was way to hard like they were now.
And rumours has it that they never ran more than 10 laps without stop in testing. So, no they did not have any goals to compete with Audi, Toyota or Porsche at Le Mans this year.

On another note, does anyone know when the last time a complete LMP1-rookie car won Le Mans?

 

[sniper420]

New Zealanders in both 1st and 2nd place in LMP1 and a second place in LMP2 --- Who says Kiwis can't fly eh ---

 

[Roy Magnes]

On another note, does anyone know when the last time a complete LMP1-rookie car won Le Mans?

Strictly not LMP1, but overall win... 1998, Laurent Aiello won on his first Le Mans together with Allan McNish and Stephane Ortelli in...a Porsche. Cycle complete

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Ye, but that wasn't the other guys' first Le Mans in the top class was it?

This was a line up of prototype rookies.

 

[Arne Dopudja]

 

[Dion Vais]

They didn't have any hybrid power at all.

Do we know why did that happen? I don't seem to find anything on the this matter.

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

I'm sad that they weren't running a delta wing car. It's a good concept and it would've been faster than the GT-R LM.

 

[paracletus]

well done Porsche. they weren't as quick as audi on best lap times but still managed to easily win it.

bad one for the aston team, with their car crashing out leading the class with 40minutes to go.
weird accident - trying to find out if it was driver mistake or mechanical failure...

 

[H34d5h07]

I didn't watch the full race, but every time I did watch, it was like I just picked up, where I left off.

Close racing almost from start to finish. And my predictions came true! (LMP1 Porsche and GT Pro Corvette win). But not in the way that I first thought thou. And it was pretty clear, anything could happen. Aston Martin looked really competitive, and close to the end, it looked like they would be the GT Pro winner.

I'm no way a fan fan of Hybrids, (or Prototypes in general) but I honestly believe Porsche deserves the win. And I must say I'm really disappointed in the camera works. Watching the Hybrids (and those awfully Audi onboard shots) made me sick tired of the race. But that's mostly because I am huge GT fan. But it's just to much focus on them. It's the same in WEC and TUSC Championships.

I'm also little disappointed when it comes to the low amount of different car brands that was present in the GT class. .

 

[Qvik]

Almost watched the entire race, had a break in the middle. It was just an amazing race.

And because there was no coverage at all here... I would like to thank the streamers!

 

[Andrew Harper]

What a fantastic race, to go almost 12 hours in and still have the top five covered by 50 seconds was something else. Watched as much as I could (plentiful supply of coffee )

Congrats to Porsche, a superb win. They didn't luck into it, they beat Audi fair and square.

Great battles all the way through the field for almost the entire race, the levels of reliability are incredible considering how hard they drive the cars. It was a pleasure to watch it. The rest of the season is going to be great as well.

Do we know why did that happen? I don't seem to find anything on the this matter.

With regards to the Nissan I think some of the problems were:
1. The car is nowhere near finished, only about 60%. Remember the project started just over a year ago.
2. The tires are wrong for the concept and are still being developed. They should almost look like an F1 tire with a high sidewall, whether they will still use this route not sure.
3. As mentioned above the hybrid system is installed in the car but wasn't being used to it's full strength. It should be 8MJ to the rear wheels. The car has no drive to the back yet (not installed, and couldn't make it work in time) so they had to do a workaround to the front wheels only and 2MJ.
4. The front wheel drive layout was causing bad imbalance issues (the car looked hard work to drive on the on-board cameras, compared to the other LMP1's).
5. Because of the lack of hybrid power (and possibly down on power with the main engine as well) the car had no punch out of the slow corners. A couple of times the other LMP cars almost drove up the back of it on the exit of corners. It was also a good 15mph down on the other LMP1's

This is not a dig at Nissan, just raising the point that in reality the project is far from ready. Will be interesting to see how they do during the rest of the year

I did feel for them though, to get one car to the finish was great but to be so far down they weren't classified is tough.

Toyota stayed in touch best they could, but judging by what I was hearing they've written off 2015 and are pushing full steam ahead with an all new car and engine for 2016, they were not that slow. It's just the Porsche and Audi's have gained almost 6 seconds a lap versus their 2 or 3. Incredible rate of development this year

 

[Sk3ptik0n]

And would really love an Italian effort over the LMP1 category, maybe not directly with Ferrari but maybe with Alfa/Maserati?! Yeah, dreams, that's what we are made of...

I am with you. While I have been a US citizen for years and years, I was still born and raised Italian. One of my first memories is watching the Monaco GP with My grandfather in 1963/64 (Memories are fuzzy but I remember a driver went into the drink but no fatality).

I feel sort of ashamed that there are no world class italian drivers in F1 anymore, when in the past there were gaggles of them. I also would love to see an LMP1 effort in WEC by an italian brand.
We have a great heritage to defend, but aside for Ferrari, we are falling very short of it.

 

[H34d5h07]

I think the Nissan LMP team deserves some credits thou. I am sure they went into this race, fully knowing they wouldn't be competitive. But they went anyway. Treated it like a giant test session. They must had gotten tons and tons of info, that will help them develop the car.

 

[Andrew Harper]

I am with you. While I have been a US citizen for years and years, I was still born and raised Italian. One of my first memories is watching the Monaco GP with My grandfather in 1963/64 (Memories are fuzzy but I remember a driver went into the drink but no fatality).

I feel sort of ashamed that there are no world class italian drivers in F1 anymore, when in the past there were gaggles of them. I also would love to see an LMP1 effort in WEC by an italian brand.
We have a great heritage to defend, but aside for Ferrari, we are falling very short of it.

Yeah I would like to see an Italian manufacturer in LMP1 as well but I'm not sure it's going to happen sometime soon (fingers crossed though).

Apart from Ferrari the other Italian car manufacturers are just too small to generate enough budget to race. Unless Ferrari race under the Maserati brand.

If you get chance though look up the Ferrari 333SP on youtube, I think I'm right in saying that was the last P1 style car that Ferrari built seriously and boy did it sound good!

It was not really a factory effort though, Michelotto and Dallara built it for them and then they scrapped the works project so privateers bought them instead (with a little Ferrari arm twisting by Giampiero Moretti ). I remember seeing six of them at Donnington in a sportscar championship many years ago, that V12 was music. haha. It had a long life of almost ten years in racing but by then the Audi R8's were around and we all know what happened then...but it won at Sebring and had a pole at Le Mans, not to mention dozens of victories.

Now I think about it, can some talented modders please do this car for us? I really miss it now!

As a sportscar racing fan though I'm more than happy seeing Ferrari in the GT ranks, they sound and look amazing Would like to see Lamborghini back there again one day, here's hoping.

 

[Leynad777]

Good race, but after watching most of the 24h Nürburgring coverage this was a little bit boring in comparison. Many more cars and manufactures, many more classes, and so crazy more crashes, almost crashes and other incidents. Nordschleife is a lot harder to tackle for 24 hours and so narrow. Even the winner car did a 360 spin and nearly all cars were stitched with tape to fix the bruises if they were lucky enough to survive.

 

[Miran Dilberovic]

Made a short montage of this year's race. Hope you like it!