24 Heures du Mans, 13 – 14 June, 2015
The 83rd edition of the Le Mans 24 Hour Race, which was the 3rd
round of the 2015 FIA WEC series, was held over the weekend of
13 – 14 June at the great Sarthe circuit. The race may have been
run over the weekend, but that was the culmination of a week’s
build-up to the endurance classic, in and around the track,
starting with the traditional scrutineering procedures in the town
centre of Le Mans on the preceding Sunday and Monday. For the
2015 running there were 56 entrants in four classes, 14 in the
LMP1 class, 19 in the LMP2 class, 9 in the LMGTE Pro class,
and 14 in the LMPGTE Am class. This was reduced to 55
starters, after the # 63 Chevrolet Corvette, driven by Jan
Magnussen, crashed heavily during the Wednesday evening
qualifying session in the Porsche Curves, as a result of debris
becoming stuck in the throttle return assembly, and the throttle
not closing when he took pressure off the accelerator pedal. The
car was unable to be repaired at the track, so the entry was
withdrawn, fortunately the driver was unhurt in the incident.
Apart from providing the greatest endurance race in the world, the
organisers also provide a wide variety of off-track activities to
entertain the legions of race fans which make the annual
pilgrimage. This year the attendance once again broke the record,
with 263,500 spectators recorded, and again this showed in the
traffic circulation problems on the roads around the track. Apart
from the scrutineering sessions in the town centre, there was also
the traditional driver parade through the town on the Friday
evening, an autograph session in the pit lane on the Tuesday
afternoon, the pit walk all day on the Friday and a host of other
activities. These included support races, this year for Aston
Martin Festival and Le Mans Legend, the trade village, live music
shows, wandering musicians, the funfair, manufacturer displays,
including a novel Lego Porsche 911 RSR, the presentation of the
Alpine 60 Celebration concept car, an exhibition titled “Ford
Ferrari Le Duel 1964 – 1967” celebrating the battle between the
two marques for overall supremacy during that period. This
featured a quintet of Ferraris from the period, albeit the 250 GTO
was a replica, a quintet of Ford GT40s and a Shelby Cobra
Daytona Coupe.
One event almost overshadowed the race (certainly in the French
press on Sunday), when the French President, Francois
Hollande, arrived as a guest of the Minister of Agriculture,
Stephane Le Foll, who is from the Sarthe region, to witness the
start of the race. This was the first visit to the race by a reigning
French President in over 40 years, the last being Georges
Pompidou in 1972.
Business on the track starts in earnest in the Wednesday
evening qualifying session, and as it turned out this was when the
quickest overall times were set. In the LMP1 group it was a
Porsche 919 landslide, with their cars occupying the top three
slots on the starting grid. Quickest was their # 18 car in the
hands of Neel Jani, who recorded a time of 3min 16.887secs,
which was a little under a second quicker than the # 17 example
driven by Timo Bernhard, followed a fraction over a second slower
by the # 19 car driven by Nick Tandy. The quickest of the Audis
was 4th fastest, which was the # 8 R18 e-tron quattro driven by
Loic Duval, with the sister # 7 & # 9 examples close behind. The
pair of Toyotas was next up on the time sheets, but their pace,
compared to their competitors last year, wasn’t competitive, as
they were some 7+secs off the pole position time. As for the trio
of new Nissan GTR-LM Nismos, with their radical front wheel drive
set-up, in their first race outing it was a baptism of fire. They
couldn’t match the pace of the other main works protagonists,
and were also slower than the three private LMP1 entries. Their
quickest example in qualifying was the # 22 car driven by Harry
Tincknell, but it was some 20secs off the pole position time, and
only around a second quicker than the top LMP2 time.
The LMP2 class pole position went to the KCMG entered # 47
ORECA-Nissan 05 driven by Richard Bradley, which was a
fraction under a second faster than Sam Bird in the G-Drive
Racing # 26 Ligier-Nissan JSP2. In its previous two outings this
year the KCMG car has proved fast but fragile, so the team were
hoping that they could tick all the boxes this time out from the
perfect class start position. In the LMGTE Pro category, it was
Richie Stanaway who put the # 99 Aston Martin Vantage GTE on
the class pole. However, it was by mere fractions of a second
from the # 51 AF Corse entered Ferrari 458 GT2 driven by Giani
Bruni. The quickest of the LMGTE Am runners was also an Aston
Martin Vantage GTE, this time the # 98 car driven by Pedro
Lamy. In fact the whole GT field was very closely matched, with
only a little over 6secs covering all 22 starters. The # 71 AF Corse
Ferrari 458 GT2, which had qualified 4th in class, was forced to
start from the back of the grid, as Olivier Beretta hadn’t completed
a qualifying lap within the 120% cut-off point. This fate also befell
the trio of LMP1 Nissans and the # 4 CLM P1/01-AER, plus the
LMP2 # 45 ORECA 03R-Nissan, which were all relegated to the
back of the LMP part of the grid.
From the qualifying times it was clear that, unless massive
misfortune overtook them, it was going to be a Porsche or an
Audi that would take the chequered flag first on Sunday afternoon.
There was some misfortune for both teams in varying degrees, but
not enough for anybody else to be in with a chance of taking the
spoils of victory. When the light went out at 3.00pm on Saturday
afternoon, it was the Porsche trio that led away from the line, with
the # 17 example getting the jump on the pole sitting # 18 car,
whilst the chasing Audis were all over them like the proverbial
rash, as they pulled away from the pursuing pack.
The casualties started early during the first hour, when the # 92
Porsche 911 RSR lost oil from its gearbox at Indianapolis, which
ignited and set the car on fire, although it was quickly
extinguished by the marshals. However, the dropped oil caught
out the # 13 Rebellion which collided with the # 42 Strakka racing
Dome, and ended up in the gravel trap, signalling the first safety
car period. This brought the Audis back onto the tail of the
Porsches, and when the track went green, Andre Lotterer in the #
7 Audi, put two swift moves on the Porsches in front of him to
take the lead. He lost it again during the next round of pit stops,
but soon fought back, until his efforts were thwarted by a puncture
in the 3rd hour. This was not a good time for Audi, as the # 8 car
driven by Benoit Treluyer glanced the barriers just before
Indianapolis, due to misleading information to some competitors
caused him to come across a large group of slow moving cars,
and nowhere to go, although he was able to continue minus most
of the front of the car.
A second safety car period didn’t work well for Audi, and allowed
the # 17 Porsche to establish a lead of around a minute in the 4th
hour. As the race approached quarter distance, the Audis began
to haul the Porsches back in, but the # 17 Porsche held on to the
lead. Porsche had a fright in the 8th hour when Romain Dumas in
the # 18 car went straight on at the end of the Mulsanne Straight
due to a brake problem, but little damage was done and he only
dropped one place. The same thing happened to Neel Jani some
hours later, in the same place, dropping the car further out of
contention. Porsche had a further blip in the game plan, when the
# 17 car had to serve a 1 minute stop-go penalty in the 9th hour
for an earlier “Slow Zone” infringement, which handed the lead to
the sister # 19 “Rookie” car of Hulkenberg / Bamber / Tandy, the
first two drivers having had no previous Le Mans race experience.
Once this car was at the head of the field it didn’t look back, and
stayed ahead of its sister cars through the night, when it showed
better speed, and right through until 3.00pm on Sunday afternoon
when it was the first across the line, which gave Porsche their
17th overall Le Mans win. The sister # 17 car of Webber / Hartley
/ Bernhard took the runner-up spot, a lap down on the winning car
The Audis suffered a series of problems, which was unusual for
them, including lost rear bodywork, a need to top up engine oil
level, a failed driveshaft and sundry other things, that stilted a
strong challenge, but they still managed to get their # 7 car of
Lotterer / Faessler / Treluyer on the final step of the podium,
albeit a further lap down. The # 8 Audi of Duval / di Grassi / Jarvis
finished 4th, another lap down and a lap ahead of the 5th place #
18 Porsche of Jani / Dumas / Lieb. As for the Toyotas, they were
both still running at the end, but didn’t have the speed of the
Porsches or Audis, and couldn’t capitalise on any failings,
finishing in 6th and 8th positions, sandwiching the # 9 Audi. For
Nissan it was a poor showing, as only one of their three cars was
running at the end, the # 22 example, and that didn’t complete
enough laps to be classified as a finisher. The # 4 Team ByKolles
CLM-AER P1/01 could be deemed even less fortunate, as after
Kaffer / Trummer / Monteiro went the distance, albeit with an
unclassified 260 laps, the car was excluded for being
underweight.
In the LMP2 class the “frail” # 47 ORECA-Nissan 05 of KCMG
was in dominant form throughout the race, its frailty seemingly a
distant memory, as the driving team of Bradley / Lapierre /
Howson took a strong class win. However, it wasn’t without its
moments, including a drive-through penalty for a pit lane
infringement, one of the illuminated number panels necessitating
a stop for attention, and a couple of offs, one of which lost a
couple of minutes, as reverse gear wouldn’t engage. All three
podium finishers in the LMP2 class were on the same lap at the
end of the race, and the others also had their share of problems
during the course of the race. Eventually the # 38 Jota Sport
Gibson-Nissan 05S of Turvey / Dolan / Evans took the runner-up
spot, and the final podium place went to the # 26 G-Drive Racing
Ligier-NissanJSP2 of Bird / Rusinov / Canal.
The GT classes saw a sprint like battle for supremacy from the
start, and were closely bunched for much of the early part of the
race, especially after the early safety car periods drew them all
back together again. In the LMGTE Pro class almost every car
suffered from some problems, some more serious than others,
and the only car that had a relatively trouble-free run was the one
that collected the victors laurels at the end. This was the # 64
Corvette C7.R of Gavin/Milner/Taylor, which, although it was the
slowest class qualifier, was slugging it out with the # 51 AF Corse
Ferrari 458 GT2 of Bruni / Fisichella / Vilander, which suffered a
gearbox problem whilst leading the Corvette with 2 hours
remaining. This necessitated a lengthy pit stop, and dropped it to
3rd place behind the sister # 71 AF Corse entry of Calado / Rigon
/ Beretta, which finished 2nd to the Corvette, despite having lost 4
laps earlier in the race, when it needed a new alternator. The
LMGTE Pro Aston Martins had even more problems than the
Ferraris, with the # 95 example of Sorensen / Thim / Nygaard the
first to hit problems with power steering failure, which lost it a lot
of time whilst the mechanics effected repairs. Then, during the
night the # 97 “art car” lost an oil line when it was bounced too
hard over the kerbs, sending it into retirement, and the pole sitting
# 99 example had a collision with a LMP2 car, which put it back
in the pits for repairs, and out of contention for a decent finishing
position. The # 95 car survived to finish 4th in class, and the # 99
car managed to come home 6th in class.
The LMGTE Am class also saw multiple cars suffer from a variety
of problems, although the class pole sitting # 98 Aston Martin
Vantage V8 of Dalla Lana / Lauda / Lamy, appeared to be the
class of the field, leading comfortably for most of the race, apart
from the # 72 SMP Racing Ferrari 458 GT2 snapping at its heels
on occasion. However, with all the Aston Martin team’s hopes
pinned on it, disaster struck in the final hour of the race, as Dalla
Lana crashed heavily at the Ford Chicane, putting it out of the
race with only 45mins to go, fortunately without injury to the
driver, handing the class win to the # 72 SMP Ferrari driven by
Shaytar / Bertolini / Basov. The American actor Patrick Dempsey
made it to the podium with his team mates Patrick Long and
Marco Seefried in 2nd in class in their # 77 Porsche 911 RSR,
with the final podium place going to the # 62 Scuderia Corsa
Ferrari 458 GT2 of Segal / Sweedler / Bell.
R# Model Chassis # Team Colour Drivers Position O/A
Cl.
Class LMGTE Pro
71 458 GT2 2884 AF Corse Multicolour D. Rigon/ J. Calado/ O.
Beretta 21st 2nd
51 458 GT2 2886 AF Corse Multicolour’ G. Bruni/ 25th 3rd T.
Vilander/ G. Fisichella
Class LMGTE Am
72 458 GT2 2872 SMP Racing Blue-White-Red A. Bertolini/ V.
Shaytar/ A. Basov 20th 1st
62 458 GT2 2830 Scuderia Corsa Red-Blue & White Stripes B.
Sweedler/ T. Bell/ F. Perrodo/ J. Segal 24th 3rd
83 458 GT2 2880 AF Corse Red-RWB Stripes E. Collard/ R.
Aguas 26th 4th
61 458 GT2 2848 AF Corse Red-RWG Tric’ P. Mann/ R.
Giammaria/ M. Cressoni 31st 5th
66 458 GT2 2808 JMW Motorsport Yellow-White- Red-Black A. Al
Faisal/ J. Giermaziak/ M. Avenatti 36th 7th
55 458 GT2 2854 AF Corse Orange-Multi D. Cameron/ M. Griffin/
A. Mortimer DNF DNF
Keith Bluemel
06/2015
|
