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After a 50-year hiatus the Italian national anthem – at one time thought to be the racing international anthem at AutoInformed – played as Ferrari was presented with the First-place trophy in the top hypercar class (LMDh). Tha was after the Rolex Clock had made two laps around its 12-hour face at the 100th running of Le Mans, aka the Circuit de la Sarthe. Last year’s winners Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa, in the #8 GR010 Hybrid from Toyota’s gazoo racing held off all competitors except the red colored one with the prancing horse. After 24 relentless hours of racing, the #8 crossed the line in second place, 1 min 21.793 secs behind the winning #51 Ferrari.
As always, rain induced carnage worked its way with hapless drivers making the outcome somewhat random with roughly one-third of the race run under yellow flags with its innovative five separate safety cars deployed by class. There was a record 16-car hypercar field with competitors from Cadillac,* Ferrari, Peugeot and Porsche. These race cars are now clearly as complex, exciting and as expensive as Formula One cars.
However, LMDh cars are more sophisticated in our view because they are designed to be quickly repaired so they can keep running without losing too much time to others still on the track. Nowhere was this more evident this year than with the formidable four Porsche 963 racers. In changing conditions with sunshine and occasional heavy rain showers that produced treacherous standing water puddles, the No. 5 and No. 75 entries from Porsche Penske Motorsport managed to spend some time in the lead, as did the number 38-car campaigned by Hertz Team Jota.
Tire damage, technical defects and accidents moved all Porsche racing cars down the field in the Hypercar class. The three Porsche works drivers – Dane Cameron from the US, Frédéric Makowiecki from France and Michael Christensen from Denmark – secured ninth place overall at the wheel of the No. 5. After all the hype – some of it here, we admit – they were ultimately the best-placed Porsche crew. The trio’s vehicle spent more than 20 minutes in the pits during the night for repairs on the cooling system, which threw them out of contention for first overall laurels. On the last lap, “Christensen virtually had to carry his car over the finish line due to a defective drivetrain,” according to Porsche.
Closer to many US hearts, Corvette Racing won the 24 Hours of Le Mans again! In the only GT class remaining – GTE AM – Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating and Nico Varrone drove the No. 33 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R to the program’s ninth class victory at Le Mans and first for the mid-engine Corvette sports car. Each of the three had spent time in the simulator alongside Antonio Garcia and Tommy Milner from Corvette Racing’s IMSA program in the lead up to the 24 Hours. The victorious trio won for the third time this season in the FIA World Endurance Championship increasing its points to 133 – a lead of 59t with three events and 91 hours of racing remaining in the season.
“Le Mans is a track where you cannot test,” said Varrone prior to the race. “You go there once a year for one test day and then the race week starts. It’s really difficult to get laps in and everything nailed for the race. So these sims sessions make it easier to establish a baseline. From this, we can work on the car as the track develops, the weather gets warmer and other things. There aren’t so many big changes to make because you know what to use from the start. Between the sim and the experience of Corvette Racing at Le Mans, we are in a great place to start and work from there to get the best car possible for the race.”
A large contingent of IMSA drivers and teams throughout the three primary classes at Le Mans were known to stateside audiences. The NASCAR Garage 56 driven by Jimmie Johnson, Jenson Button and Mike Rockenfeller in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet delighted the crowd and the Eurosport Announcers since it was fast on track, consistently putting down lap times that bettered cars in the GT class. The car ran near the top of the GT field for more than 20 hours until a driveline issue sidelined the team for more than an hour. Overall, the car was running at the finish, completed 285 laps on the 8.4-mile circuit and finished 39th in the 62-car field.
“That was unbelievable,” said Jim France, whose idea for the project came from his father, NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. who brought two stock cars to Le Mans for the 1976 edition of the race. “That was thousands of hours of hard work by hundreds of people that went into making this thing happen. And then the way the team and the pit crews and everybody performed all week, it was just fantastic.”
*Cadillac scored its first podium finish in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R, co-driven by Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook, aided by reliability, while running a relatively clean race and consistent pit stops earned third place. Cadillac and the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R entry moved to third in the FIA World Endurance Championship Manufacturer and Team/Driver Championship standings heading into Round 5 of the calendar next month in Monza, Italy.
Briggs Cunningham and S.H. Allard would be among the many people proud of the accomplishment. As a privateer, Cunningham entered two Cadillac 61 Coupes in the 1950 race with much publicity and hype, but not winning results. Allard, who owned a low-volume car manufacturing business, finished third in the race with a Cadillac 5.4-liter V8 engine in his Allard J2.
For the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023 Results Click Here
Le Mans – Ferrari, Corvette, Victorious in Rain
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After a 50-year hiatus the Italian national anthem – at one time thought to be the racing international anthem at AutoInformed – played as Ferrari was presented with the First-place trophy in the top hypercar class (LMDh). Tha was after the Rolex Clock had made two laps around its 12-hour face at the 100th running of Le Mans, aka the Circuit de la Sarthe. Last year’s winners Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa, in the #8 GR010 Hybrid from Toyota’s gazoo racing held off all competitors except the red colored one with the prancing horse. After 24 relentless hours of racing, the #8 crossed the line in second place, 1 min 21.793 secs behind the winning #51 Ferrari.
As always, rain induced carnage worked its way with hapless drivers making the outcome somewhat random with roughly one-third of the race run under yellow flags with its innovative five separate safety cars deployed by class. There was a record 16-car hypercar field with competitors from Cadillac,* Ferrari, Peugeot and Porsche. These race cars are now clearly as complex, exciting and as expensive as Formula One cars.
However, LMDh cars are more sophisticated in our view because they are designed to be quickly repaired so they can keep running without losing too much time to others still on the track. Nowhere was this more evident this year than with the formidable four Porsche 963 racers. In changing conditions with sunshine and occasional heavy rain showers that produced treacherous standing water puddles, the No. 5 and No. 75 entries from Porsche Penske Motorsport managed to spend some time in the lead, as did the number 38-car campaigned by Hertz Team Jota.
Tire damage, technical defects and accidents moved all Porsche racing cars down the field in the Hypercar class. The three Porsche works drivers – Dane Cameron from the US, Frédéric Makowiecki from France and Michael Christensen from Denmark – secured ninth place overall at the wheel of the No. 5. After all the hype – some of it here, we admit – they were ultimately the best-placed Porsche crew. The trio’s vehicle spent more than 20 minutes in the pits during the night for repairs on the cooling system, which threw them out of contention for first overall laurels. On the last lap, “Christensen virtually had to carry his car over the finish line due to a defective drivetrain,” according to Porsche.
Closer to many US hearts, Corvette Racing won the 24 Hours of Le Mans again! In the only GT class remaining – GTE AM – Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating and Nico Varrone drove the No. 33 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R to the program’s ninth class victory at Le Mans and first for the mid-engine Corvette sports car. Each of the three had spent time in the simulator alongside Antonio Garcia and Tommy Milner from Corvette Racing’s IMSA program in the lead up to the 24 Hours. The victorious trio won for the third time this season in the FIA World Endurance Championship increasing its points to 133 – a lead of 59t with three events and 91 hours of racing remaining in the season.
“Le Mans is a track where you cannot test,” said Varrone prior to the race. “You go there once a year for one test day and then the race week starts. It’s really difficult to get laps in and everything nailed for the race. So these sims sessions make it easier to establish a baseline. From this, we can work on the car as the track develops, the weather gets warmer and other things. There aren’t so many big changes to make because you know what to use from the start. Between the sim and the experience of Corvette Racing at Le Mans, we are in a great place to start and work from there to get the best car possible for the race.”
A large contingent of IMSA drivers and teams throughout the three primary classes at Le Mans were known to stateside audiences. The NASCAR Garage 56 driven by Jimmie Johnson, Jenson Button and Mike Rockenfeller in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet delighted the crowd and the Eurosport Announcers since it was fast on track, consistently putting down lap times that bettered cars in the GT class. The car ran near the top of the GT field for more than 20 hours until a driveline issue sidelined the team for more than an hour. Overall, the car was running at the finish, completed 285 laps on the 8.4-mile circuit and finished 39th in the 62-car field.
“That was unbelievable,” said Jim France, whose idea for the project came from his father, NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. who brought two stock cars to Le Mans for the 1976 edition of the race. “That was thousands of hours of hard work by hundreds of people that went into making this thing happen. And then the way the team and the pit crews and everybody performed all week, it was just fantastic.”
*Cadillac scored its first podium finish in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R, co-driven by Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook, aided by reliability, while running a relatively clean race and consistent pit stops earned third place. Cadillac and the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R entry moved to third in the FIA World Endurance Championship Manufacturer and Team/Driver Championship standings heading into Round 5 of the calendar next month in Monza, Italy.
Briggs Cunningham and S.H. Allard would be among the many people proud of the accomplishment. As a privateer, Cunningham entered two Cadillac 61 Coupes in the 1950 race with much publicity and hype, but not winning results. Allard, who owned a low-volume car manufacturing business, finished third in the race with a Cadillac 5.4-liter V8 engine in his Allard J2.
For the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023 Results Click Here