A crisp, clean start saw the #7 Toyota through into the lead, with Jani chasing through in the #1 Porsche, demoting the pole-sitting #8 to third in the opening laps. As the first hour progressed, it became a tight battle for the overall lead, with Porsche staying in touch, but ultimately losing out on the first pitstop to allow Toyota to round off the hour with a one-two.
Before the Start
Following official warm-up, the rest of the morning provided plenty of track action and entertainment, starting with an incident-packed Porsche Carrera Cup race, fast, furious and very close-run from start to finish. That was followed by a Road to Le Mans race that may have ended with a much prophesied win for DKR Engineering, but proved highly absorbing. The Luxembourg-based outfit had entered two out of the three Norma M30-Nissan chassis in a race dominated, numerically, by Ligiers. Sheer numbers proved to be insufficient, however, and the #3 Norma eased to victory in a race complicated by frequent position changes and repeated slow-zones, see our full Road to Le Mans Report.
The build-up to the main event followed all the expected routes. From one o’clock the contenders started to make their way out onto the grid to take up their traditional Le Mans Start positions; herringboned onto the pit wall opposite the main tribunes. Bruno Vanderstick, the incessantly enthusiastic Voice of Le Mans, introduced all the teams, effervesced over anthems, rhapsodised about celebrity guests, and generally expressed narcissistic loquacity to an excess. Such is his way. By contrast, there was a moment of reflection, followed by generous applause as the last notes of the British anthem faded from the public address, in honour of the victims of the various recent terrorist attacks in the UK.
There have been comments and observations this year about the size of the crowds. The roadways around the circuit have seemed quieter than usual; the queues a little shorter, the antics a tad more restrained, but the grid walk was a populous as ever before. There are evidently plenty of VIPs eager to mix it with team crews, photographers and ACO personnel, but some of the grandstands, even overlooking the grid, appeared less than tightly packed.
From two, the marshals started the process of clearing the grid, leaving only photographers, major dignitaries and team members to punctuate the grid. The grid-girls, holding flags and shaded by red and white umbrellas, marked the nationality of each team, and with the tarmac clear, the crews lined up against them for the parade of the 24 Hour Trophy, delivered by a vintage Porsche 911, pillar-box red with massive whale-tail rear wing. An operatic rendition of the Marseillaise was followed by an impressive delivery of the starting Tricoleur by soldiers abseiling down from a hovering military helicopter.
With much pomp, the flag was handed across to Chase Carey, CEO of Formula 1, who would be honorary starter for the race, accompanied by Mark Webber, officially Grand Marshal for the 85th Le Mans 24 Hours. The remaining team personnel made their way from the grid, the girls marched off with their flags, and then, at 14:50, the first of the 60 cars on this year’s grid erupted noisily into life, followed almost immediately by 59 more, just as the French aerobatic display team swept overhead in a trail of red, white and blue smoke. Seconds later, the first cars started to move away up towards Dunlop on the formation lap. The Corvette hooter bellowed in acknowledgement, and suddenly, all was quiet in pit straight….
In a change from previous years, this was no parade lap, no chance for a dive into the pits, no taking up position on a regular grid. This year, it was straight from the staggered display into a formation lap, and straight into a rolling start.
Everyone moved off cleanly, but it was a sedate progression around the circuit, restrained by one of the metallic blue BMW pace cars. Little chance here for warming tyres. To stirring jusic, and waving flags, the pace car pulled aside, and Chase Carey waved his flag.
The Start
LMP
The cars thundered across the line to begin the race, and it all looked remarkably clean. There were a couple of position changes in the midfield of LMP2 and an incident for the ByKolles LMP1, the car believed to have clipped another, perhaps the #9 Toyota in the mêlée and sustaining a front-left puncture. Out at the very front, Mike Conway snuck through ahead of the pole-sitting #8 right at the start, and then Neel Jani took advantage of the distraction to tuck the #1 Porsche in behind. From pole, Buemi was down to third in the blink of an eye.
In P2, G-Drive pole sitter Vasily Petrov lost out as the front row in P2 gunned across the line; Vergne in the #24 Manor Oreca initially getting into the lead, but then dropping back and allowing Ollie Jarvis in the #38 Jacki Chan racing Oreca through into the lead and Bruno Senna in the #31 Vaillante Rebellion into third.
Conway was settling down swiftly into his role as the hare, setting a blistering quick pace. By the end of the first lap, he’d already established a two-second lead over Jani in the #1 Porsche, who had Buemi tucked neatly under his tail.
From 5th, the ByKolles was limping smokily back to the pits. Ollie Webb would rejoin with fresh rubber and some new bodywork, but two laps down. Despite establishing an impressive margin so quickly. Conway wasn’t getting away, and the man on the charge was Neel Jani; the Porsche driver setting purple sectors in his determination to catch up with the leading Toyota. Buemi was setting almost identical laps times just behind.
In LMP2, they were line astern across the line at the end of lap 1, with Jarvis posting a 3:30.145 to stand a second clear of … Bruno Senna, through to second in the #31 Vaillante Rebellion and Petrov third for CEFC Manor. Fourth across the line was Nelson Piquet Jr in the second of the Vaillante Rebellions and Vergne fifth in the #24 CEFC Manor Oreca.
Through to complete the second lap, and Conway was showing a clean pair of heels to the chasing Jani, a 3:18.932 being the Toyota’s first full flyer, followed by an even quicker 3:18.694, but all those behind were pushing equally hard – Jani quicker through sector one, Buemi the fastest in Sector 2. For the next several laps this remained the status quo, with Conway eking out a narrow advantage lap-by-lap. By the end of the 4th lap the advantage stood at almost exactly 3 seconds.
Elsewhere in P2, progress seemed unusually settled for so early into the race. The only car looking less than settled was the Bratislava #49, already last after a troubled opening lap, but then Breukers spinning again on the third to drop three laps down with only four completed.
Half an hour gone and there’d been no change in P1. Conway’s gap had initially stabilised over Jani at around the one-second mark, but once the leaders started to encounter traffic, Conway gave the impression of being better able to cope. Steadily extending his lead to 3 seconds. So, 9 laps into the 24 Hours, Conway had 3 clear seconds over Jani, with the Porsche having finally shaken off Buemi’s Toyota to have a couple of seconds in hand. Bernhard in the #2 Porsche was another three seconds back on the #8 Toyota. The #9 Toyota was playing a tail-end Charlie, some 19 seconds adrift with minor damage to the bodywork, assumed to have been sustained after contact from the ByKolles #4 right at the start.
The #9 pitted forty minutes into the race to have the front bodywork replaced, The car was refuelled, but left on the same rubber before being returned to the track. This was probably not a scheduled stop, but would place the #9 out of sequence which, with a busy garage, could be interpreted as a benefit. Next time around, the #2 Porsche also made a pitstop, this time nearer to a typical schedule, but possibly for the same logistical reason. Sure enough, the #7 Toyota, and then the #1 Porsche, both pitted at the end of laps 12.
These various pitstops saw Conway return to the track in the lead, but now with Buemi tight on his tail, giving Toyota the team’s first one-two of the race, with less than half a second between the two TS050s. It was enough to set up a needle battle between the two team-mates that lasted for several laps. In then end, it was a small braking error from Conway coming into the Dunlop Esses which allowed Buemi to close right up to his team mate. Buemi was pressuring Conway all the way down the Mulsanne and out on the run to Indianapolis, where he sliced through to take Conway around the outside in a brave move. Conway’s pace was hot but clearly not quite hot enough…
Once through, Buemi started to pull away rapidly.
There was plenty going on in LMP2 as well, with the top six nose to tail. Oliver Jarvis’s Jackie Chan DC Oreca was still leading, but by the narrowest of margins. Senna’s Vaillante Rebellion was right on his tail, with Petrov’s #26 G-Drive Oreca still in close contention and with pace in third. His ex-F1 colleague Jean-Eric Vergne was also hanging on, with Nelson Panciatici’s #35 Alpine right with him for sixth.
That all went awry for Petrov when the #26 G-Drive spun at the pit entrance with damage to the nose section. The Russian made it back to the pitlane, but pursued an “incorrect” entry to the pitlane en route for a change of nose section, and was subsequently given a proverbial rap across the knuckles from the stewards. Harsh.
This left Vergne’s Manor Oreca in front, ahead of Mikhail Aleshin’s #27 SMP Dallara, which had been the quickest non-Oreca. This group then took their own pit stops, but with these coming a little sooner than expected, the suggestion was that conditions had prompted a strategic re-think.
A puncture for the #39 Graff Oreca, Eric Trouillet at the wheel, dropped the car well down the order with ten minutes left to the end of the hour.
Battle rejoined ion LMP2, with the lead being hotly contested between Jean-Eric Vergne’s Manor Oreca and Nelson Piquet Jr’s Vaillante Rebellion. The #13 car looked very aggressive in a straight line, taking the lead on the approach to Indianapolis. Vitaly Petrov was next to move through, overhauling the #24 car to reverse the order of the Manor entries.
As we closed on the end of the opening hour, LMP1 looked remarkably well-settled. Beumi had the #8 heading Conway in the #7 by just over a second. Neel Jani held third, but well within spitting distance, and Bernhard had the #2 Porsche fourth. The third Toyota, with Lapierre in the cockpit, was a relatively distant 5th, 35 seconds off the leader.
On the run-up to the hour Senna’s lead had extended to 11 seconds over the two Manors, with Piquet Jr still well and truly in touch but now with Tristan Gommendy’s #37 Jackie Chan car joining in the chasing group. They were virtually tied together, Gommendy setting his fastest race lap of 3:31.895 in his defence of the position. The recovering Ollie Jarvis was clawing back track position 12 seconds behind this group, having passed Nelson Panciatici and Mikhail Aleshin, the SMP Dallara still holding the ‘non-Oreca class’ lead.
On the hour, Gommendy was the first to pit, followed soon by Panciatici and Piquet Jr, these three seemingly a lap early, as was Nigel Moore’s #34 Tockwith Ligier and Roman Rusinov, possibly now trying to get back on to a regular fuel schedule. And so the first hour ended.
GTE
A clean start saw the entire field of both GT classes get around lap one without incident. Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari demoted polesitter Turner in the #97 Aston to second off the grid, ahead of Westbrook in the #69 Ford, Garcia in the #63 Corvette, Bird in the #71 Ferrari and Estre in the #92 Porsche.
In Am, Rees held the Larbre Corvette’s first position, ahead of Lamy in the #98 Aston, Cairoli in the #77 Proton Porsche, Townsend Bell in the #62 WeatherTech Ferrari, Cioci in the #55 SoR Ferrari and Stevens in the #84 JMW Ferrari. A little later, there was an early pitstop for the #83 DH Racing-run Krohn Ferrari about 20 minutes in, with Nic Jonsson at the wheel.
After 15 minutes, Thiim in the #95 Aston had got past both team-mate Turner and initial leader Pier Guidi to take the lead of the GTE Pro class. Turner responded by demoting Pier Guidi to third shortly after, making it an Aston 1-2 in the opening stages. Thiim set the fastest lap of the race thus far (a 3:51.879) and set about building a lead, but behind virtually the entire GTE Pro field was circulating in a nose-to-tail train.
Rees meanwhile was pacing the Am field, setting a new race lap record for the class with a 3:53.857 almost precisely half-way through the hour. Further back, Rob Bell in the TF Aston was on the move, unseating Cairoli from third and setting his sights on his namesake Townsend Bell in the second-place WeatherTech Ferrari. Cairoli would subsequently lose another place to Cioci in the #55 SoR Ferrari.
In Pro, Mucke in the #66 Ford was looking racy, getting past both Gavin’s and Bird’s Ferrari to sit seventh in the class as the hour entered its last 20 minutes. Shortly after, Priaulx and Rees were respectively the first scheduled pit visiters in the Pro and Am classes, about 15 minutes before the end of the hour.
After the first pitstop cycle had been completed and the clock ticked past 4pm, the order in both GTE classes was as follows, with the Larbre Corvette dropping to fourth due to a long stop:
GTE Pro:
1 #95 Aston
2 #97 Aston
3 #51 Ferrari
4 #92 Porsche
5 #66 Ford
6 #71 Ferrari
GTE Am:
1 #62 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari
2 #90 TF Sport Aston
3 #98 AMR Aston
4 #50 Larbre Corvette
5 #55 SoR Ferrari
6 #84 JMW Ferrari
