Ferrari overcame wretched weather and tenacious rivals on Sunday to claim back-to-back editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
Nicklas Nielsen took the checkered flag after a vintage and grueling contest, the Dane sharing driving duties in the Italian constructor’s No. 50 car with Italian Antonio Fuoco and Spaniard Miguel Molina.
Toyota’s No. 7 car took second, with Ferrari’s No. 51 car, which triumphed last year, completing the podium.
Photo: AP
Twenty-four long hours, 311 laps and 4,238km after French soccer great Zinedine Zidane had sent the 62 car-grid on its way on Saturday, Ferrari emerged victorious after a classic version of motorsport’s supreme endurance test.
“I had a very long stint driving, the last lap was so long, but we did it,” Nielsen said.
“We were ready for this moment for one year, we won it. We did a good job since the beginning, now is the moment to enjoy,” Molina added.
Porsche’s pole-sitting No. 6 car narrowly missed a podium place in fourth ahead of Toyota’s No. 8 car.
In an attritional affair, the night proved long and tedious with incessant rain forcing long yellow flag periods. That reduced the gleaming high-spec racing cars capable of going well in excess of 300kph to pottering along at speeds normally associated with a family hatchback heading to the local supermarket.
Drivers such as Toyota’s previous winner New Zealander Brendon Hartley complained of knee cramps as they were unable to put their foot on the gas in the confined cockpits, while Molina constantly complained of boredom on the team radio.
This year’s Le Mans set an invidious record of more than six hours of racing neutralized by safety cars. Four were used at any one time, with some even having “to pit” to refuel.
Mechanics used the period to grab some much needed shut-eye, but that was not a luxury all the unpaid track marshals from France and the UK could afford.
At the midway point at 4am, with the rain tipping down, visibility minimal and spray flying, Hartley’s Toyota led Kevin Estre in one of Porsche’s six Hypercar entries.
After daylight broke over the saturated Sarthe circuit, the safety cars retreated to give the weary 250,000 crowd a welcome dawn chorus of car engines roaring again in anger. Nocturnal tedium made way for daytime mayhem.
At about 9.30am, mechanics in the Aston Martin garage had their hearts in their mouths watching Daniel Mancinelli roll his car. There was an agonizing wait before the 35-year-old Italian forced open his side door and scrambled out, thankfully unscathed.
With six hours to go and a restart after another safety car interlude Earl Bamber in the No. 2 Cadillac was told on the team radio “it’s time to make the eagle fly.”
The closing hours developed into a mesmerizing battle between four constructors — Porsche, Ferrari, Toyota and Cadillac.
Ferrari’s No. 50 car led from last year’s winning No. 51 car with fewer than 120 minutes to go, followed by Toyota’s No. 7, then the No. 2 Cadillac.
Nielsen in the leading Ferrari then had to pit after orders from race control due to an unsafe open door that he had tried frantically to shut himself.
That gifted Jose Maria Lopez’s Toyota the lead, but only momentarily, as Nielsen with an hour remaining had regained control, the Dane establishing a 30 secong cushion as the long awaited finish approached.
A frantic conclusion in the rain, with pit stops aplenty triggered multiple changes in the lead with Ferrari crossing the line 14 seconds ahead.
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