The Japanese manufacturer has never been seriously threatened by its two rivals Hypercar, Glickenhaus and Alpine, in a relatively clean race for both GR010 Hybrid teams.
The only major drama that struck any Toyota occurred shortly before 4 p.m., when José María López stopped on the track with car number 7 and had to perform a full power cycle of the system. front hybrid to get back on track, losing a lap in the process.
Although the car shared by López, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi was able to return to the front lap, at the pace there was virtually nothing to choose between the two Toyota crews, who had passed the first two-thirds of the race exchanging leadership. .
The only mistake on the way to victory for car number 8 was a slightly slow change from Buemi to Hartley in the penultimate hour, and Hartley got the win by a final margin of 2m01.222s over Lopez on the machine number 7.
It marks the fourth victory at Le Mans for the Swiss driver Buemi, a third for the New Zealander Hartley, who are now the most successful riders in La Sarthe of their respective nations in terms of victories, and the first for the new World Endurance Championship of the Toyota FIA. pilot Ryo Hirakawa, who becomes the fifth Japanese driver to win the event.
The best of the rest in the five-car Hypercar division was Ryan Briscoe, Richard Westbrook and Franck Mailleux’s # 709 Glickenhaus 007 LMH, which finished five laps below, enjoying a fairly clean race except for one trip. early in the garage to replace a sensor.
The fastest of the American manufacturer’s cars at the start of the race, the # 708 car of Olivier Pla, Pipo Derani and Romain Dumas, had already fallen off the main lap when a rear suspension problem caused Pla to make a turn to Tertre Rouge at eight o’clock. .
The trio finally recovered to fourth place overall, 10 laps from the winning Toyota.
Alpine’s A480 LMP1 solo had a disastrous race haunted by technical gremlins that caused the entry shared by Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Andre Negrao to finish out of the overall top 20, 18 laps below.
Two trips to the garage – first to replace the electronic clutch unit and then the ignition coil – were followed by a penalty for speeding and then another 20-minute period in the pits after a crash. from Vaxiviere to the Porsche Curves in the morning.
JOTA dominant in LMP2
# 38 Jota Oreca 07 – Gibson LMP2 of Roberto Gonzalez, Antonio Felix Da Costa, Will Stevens
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
JOTA achieved an impressive victory in the LMP2 class which seemed to be the probable result from the first stages of the race.
The # 38 Oreca 07-Gibson shared by Antonio Felix da Costa, Roberto Gonzalez and Will Stevens took the lead after the first round of stops and barely topped after that, at one point of a turn on the opposition.
An accident for the entry of WRT No. 31 by Robin Frijns in the early hours of the morning, which caused the only safety car period of the race, meant that No. 38 was delayed at the end of the pitlane by a red light, but that was it. about the only misfortune the team suffered.
In the end, Stevens got the first class victory of JOTA since 2017 with a margin of 2m21s ahead of Prema Oreca number 9 of Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz and Lorenzo Colombo, who also enjoyed a very smooth race.
JOTA got two cars on the podium in his second entry, the number 28 of Ed Jones, Jonathan Aberdein and Oliver Rasmussen was a lap below in third place ahead of the car TDS Racing of last minute substitute Nyck de Vries , Mathias Beche and Tijmen. van der Helm.
The Penske team was in the top five in their last LMP2 outing in the foreseeable future with Felipe Nasr, Dane Cameron and Emmanuel Collard, although they lost time at first with an apparent brake line problem that required a change of nose.
In addition to JOTA, the other two multi-car power teams in LMP2 had races to forget.
United Autosports lost a car in the 1st round when Will Owen’s No. 22 machine was hit by Rene Rast’s pole-winning WRT, and ended up in the gravel, while No. 23 was also hit. in the pits from the beginning by a delaminated front. -right tire, dropping it in order.
Delayed by a penalty for an unsafe throw and another drive-through for a slow zone offense, No. 23 Alex Lynn, Oliver Jarvis and Le Mans’ youngest starter, Josh Pierson, were only able to recover in the sixth on arrival, two laps below.
Owen, Filipe Albuquerque and Phil Hanson finished eleventh as they struggled with ground and side damage from their first corner, so Rast was penalized.
With Frijns crashing into the main entrance of the WRT and car number 41 Realteam by WRT badly delayed and damaged in the first curve incident involving Rast and Owen, it was car number 42 on the third chain of Dries Vanthoor, Mirko Bortolotti and Rolf Ineichen who were the best ranked of the Belgian team in a low 10th place.
WRC legend Sebastien Ogier was in the top 10 on his Le Mans debut, finishing ninth in Richard Mille Racing’s No. 1 entry alongside Charles Milesi and Lilou Wadoux.
As the TDS car was no longer eligible for Pro / Am honors, it was entry number 45 from Algarve Pro Racing shared by Rene Binder, Steven Thomas and James Allen that won the subclass.
Porsche victorious in the dramatic GTE Pro battle
# 91 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR 19 LMGTE Pro by Gianmaria Bruni, Richard Lietz, Frederic Makowiecki
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
The battle for the last GTE Pro victory at Le Mans went the way of Porsche, as Corvette Racing, a favorite before the race, suffered a double setback with its C8.R.
Corvette had swept the front row of the class and her cars seemed to be the class of the seven-speed high-speed Pro field, with Porsche as her closest rival and Ferrari struggling to cling to the tails of their coats. two rivals.
However, about a third of the distance, the Corvette lost a car due to containment when the 63rd machine of Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor and Nicky Catsburg suffered a dramatic failure in the left rear suspension, which foreshadowed the final withdrawal of the car.
This put the 92nd Porsche crew of Kevin Estre, Michael Christensen and Laurens Vanthoor in line to replicate their 2018 GTE Pro victory, until the car was hit by a right front puncture in the early hours of the morning that destroyed the front of the 911 RSR of the works. -19.
Corvette regained the lead at this point with the # 64 C8.R survivor of Nick Tandy, Tommy Milner and Alexander Sims, with the trio more than a minute away from the field.
But the race turned around again when Sims crashed into the barriers of the former Mulsanne in Francois Perrodo’s AF Corse LMP2 car with six hours to run.
With the two Corvettes already out, the race turned into a duel between the 91st Porsche car of Gianmaria Bruni, Richard Lietz and Frederic Makowiecki and the 51st Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Daniel Serra leader of AF Corsica.
The Ferrari barely caught on to a slim lead when Pier Guidi had to stop early due to a puncture in his right back, and from there he left for the crew of Porsche number 91, which achieved its first WEC victory since the 2019 Silverstone race by 42.6 s.
The entry number 52 of Ferrari by Miguel Molina, Davide Rigon and Antonio Fuoco completed the podium in third place, ahead of the delayed Porsche number 92 and the Ferrari number 74 of Riley Motorsports.
TF Sport Aston wins GTE Am
# 33 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage AmR LMGTE Am by Ben Keating, Henrique Chaves, Marco Sorensen
Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt
Aston Martin won honors in the GTE Am division as Ben Keating of TF Sport avenged his 2019 disqualification with the Vantage victory he shared with Marco Sorensen and Henrique Chaves.
WeatherTech Racing’s Porsche trio Julien Andlauer, Cooper MacNeil and the stunning bronze-ranked Thomas Merrill looked strong in the early stages, but MacNeil and Merrill’s mistakes during the night hours turned the initiative into the ultra-consistent TF car. , who finally finished with a 44.4 second lead.
Northwestern AMR’s Nicki Thiim, Paul Dalla Lana and David Pittard, one lap behind the leading duo, put two Aston crews on the podium.
Harry Tincknell’s Porsche Dempsey-Proton, Sebastian Priaulx and Christian Ried had searched the road to the site until a broken swing in the last three hours dropped the number 77 in order.