Backed into an impossible scenario, the #50 Ferrari AF Corse 499P of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen pulled off an incredible 50-minute economy run to win the 92nd annual 24 Hours of Le Mans and claim back-to-back wins for Ferrari – and their 11th in total!
Forced off sequence due to a door latching problem in the penultimate hour, Nielsen pitted with 50 minutes to go but saved enough battery and fuel to take the win, completing 311 laps and winning by 14.2 seconds over the second-placed #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid of José Maria López, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries.
Toyota finishes runner-up to Ferrari for the second time in as many years of the proper Hypercar era, with the #51 Ferrari of 2023 winners Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, and Antonio Giovinazzi holding onto third.
The #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 (Kevin Estre/Andre Lotterer/Laurens Vanthoor) finished fourth, as a record nine cars finished on the overall lead lap.
United Autosports won the LMP2 class for the first time since 2020 – the Anglo-American team’s second class win in the last five years – led by Oliver Jarvis and American rookies Nolan Siegel and Bijoy Garg.
The #22 United Autosports ORECA 07-Gibson won by xxx seconds over the #34 Inter Europol Competition car of Kuba Śmiechowski, Clement Novalak and Vladislav Lomko. The Racing Bakers of Poland came close to going back-to-back in LMP2 at Le Mans, but would settle for second in class.
Rounding out the LMP2 podium was the #28 IDEC Sport machine (Paul Lafargue/Reshad de Gerus/Job van Uitert) ahead of the Vector Sport #10 (Ryan Cullen/Stephane Richelmi/Patrick Pilet).
François Perrodo, Nicolas Varrone, and Ben Barnicoat claimed LMP2 Pro/Am honours in the #183 AF Corse ORECA, and finished fifth out of 16 total starters in LMP2 overall.
Manthey Racing and EMA Motorsport claimed the honour of being the very first LMGT3 class winners in the history of the 24 Hours of Le Mans: Yasser Shahin, Morris Schuring, and the legendary Richard Lietz took the victory in the #91 Porsche 911 LMGT3 R, dominating the final third of the race after the #92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche fell to the wayside with a gear selection issue.
Team WRT’s #31 BMW M4 LMGT3 (Darren Leung/Sean Gelael/Augusto Farfus) finished second, and in an understated run to the podium, the #88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang LMGT3 (Giorgio Roda/Mikkel O. Pedersen/Dennis Olsen) brought the Blue Oval a class podium in Ford’s return to the race – followed closely by the #44 Proton Mustang (John Hartshorne/Ben Tuck/Christopher Mies) in fourth.
More to follow tonight – stay tuned to Dailysportscar.com for more coverage of the 24 Hours of Le Mans!
