Final result is in!
After post-race technical inspections, we now have a final result. There were no changes!
Toyota’s milestones
It is a second win for both Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi, whilst Nyck de Vries scored his first Le Mans victory.
De Vries is the first Dutch winner since Jan Lammers in 1988.
Toyota’s win means that the run of different models of Hypercar winning consecutive races, which stood at seven pre-Le Mans, has come to an end, with the TR010 Hybrid having already won at Imola earlier this year.
The TR010 Hybrid joins the GR010-Hybrid as a first-time Le Mans winner for the marque. In fact, with the Ferrari 499P having also triumphed on debut, all three winning models in the Hypercar era have won on debut.
Inter Europol’s triple
Inter Europol Competition has joined JOTA and Signatech as a three-time winner of the LMP2 category, matching the latter’s achievement of three wins in four years.
It is also the second team to record a 1-2 finish in the class, after JOTA, which was competing under the Jackie Chan DC Racing banner, in 2017.
Tom Dillmann, Jakub Smiechowski and Nick Yelloly are the first trio to successfully defend a class victory at the race together since 2019, when both Toyota’s LMP1 and Signatech’s LMP2 crews did so.
It’s a second win for both Dillmann and Yelloly, whilst team principal Smiechowski is now a three-time winner.
Corvette Racing hits double-digits
TF Sport’s LMGT3 victory is the 10th class win for the Corvette Racing programme at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, coming 25 years after its first back in 2001.
It is also the 12th class victory for Corvette this century, with Larbre Competition’s LMGTE Am effort, which yielded two wins, not contributing to Corvette Racing’s official tally.
It’s a third class win for TF Sport and Ben Keating, the second for Nicky Catsburg, and the first for Jonny Edgar.
Heinrich’s triple crown
Laurin Heinrich has added a class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans to his overall victories in this year’s 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring.
Heinrich, who was making his first-ever LMP2 start, triumphed in LMP2 Pro/Am aboard the #4 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA he shared with George Kurtz and Alex Quinn.
APR improves mighty win rate
Algarve Pro Racing recorded its third LMP2 Pro/Am win, meaning it has now has a 50% win rate since the class’ introduction in 2021.
It was Kurtz’s second win, following on from 2023, and a first class victory for both Heinrich and Quinn.
Porsche ends podium streak
This was the first time since 1991 that a Porsche, or Porsche-engined, car did not record a class podium at Le Mans.
Ferrari, meanwhile, failed to record a class podium for the first time since 2005.
Le Mans winners take FIA WEC lead
In both Hypercar and LMGT3, the Le Mans winner has taken over the lead of the FIA World Endurance Championship standings.
In the Hypercar drivers’ World Championship, the #7 Toyota crew is provisionally on 75 points, four more than René Rast and Robin Frijns of the #20 BMW.
Sheldon van der Linde, who missed Imola and is therefore at a 10-point deficit to his #20 BMW colleagues, is third, with the #8 Toyota trio fourth on 56 points.
The defending champions, the #51 Ferrari’s James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi, are fifth on 39 points.
In the manufacturers’ championship, Toyota provisionally has a 36-point advantage over BMW, with Ferrari a further 34 points behind in third.
And in LMGT3, provisionally Nicky Catsburg and Jonny Edgar lead the drivers’ championship on 72 points, with their #33 Corvette co-driver Ben Keating in second place, on 50 points, despite missing the first two rounds.
The #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari trio is next, on 40 points, with the next five crews covered by only eight points.
Fastest LMGT3 edition yet
This pace of the LMGT3 category has taken a step forward this year, with Goodyear assessing it as the fastest Le Mans yet for the still relatively new class. Race pace, calculated through the 100-lap average of the best car, was 1.2 seconds quicker per lap than last year.
Bourdais: “I’m not gonna get many of those opportunities,” after another Le Mans near-miss
Sebastien Bourdais admitted that he may never get another opportunity at overall victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans like the one that slipped through his fingertips this weekend.
Bourdais and his Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA co-drivers Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber were among the strong contenders for the win on Saturday night, but fell out of contention early on Sunday morning when their #38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R began to suffer from a power steering problem.
The issue proved to be terminal, leaving Bourdais and company to abandon the race after only 16 hours and 218 laps.
“Other than the retirement and that significant failure that, unfortunately, is the dagger in the heart…it’s only positive,” Bourdais remarked, to sum up his 19th Le Mans start.
“We obviously had an amazing car. It was fighting at the front the entire time. My teammates did an amazing job. The team in general executed the way we had to, and we gave ourselves a chance. And that’s all you can ask for at Le Mans.”
It was Bourdais’ fourth time representing Cadillac at Le Mans, his home race. He has a GTE Pro class win with Ford Chip Ganassi Racing in 2016, but the overall and top class victory remains elusive. With Peugeot he finished third overall three times (2007, 2009, and 2011) and fourth twice (2000 with Pescarolo Sport and 2023 with Cadillac/Ganassi).
“Probably (by) 2020 I’d pretty much given up ever getting that chance ever again, and this year, it was there,” he lamented.
“This race has got its ways to humble everything and everyone, and for a maybe two-dollar piece, it just came to a crushing end. I’m not gonna understate it. It’s a big blow.”
Bourdais said that he wouldn’t know if he’d return to race for the overall win at Le Mans next year. He already sacrificed a parallel IMSA LMP2 program with Tower Motorsport this year, to devote more time to his WEC effort with Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA.
“I’m 47 years old. I’m not gonna get many of those opportunities,” Bourdais iterated. “But it’s racing, you know. Michael Andretti’s gone, what, 20 times to the (Indianapolis) 500? And never got it. Some races just decide to turn its back on some guys, and smile at others, it is what it is. You win much fewer than you lose in a racing career.
“And that doesn’t make you a better or worse driver, it’s just part of the journey. And sometimes it’s incredibly cruel.”
WRT salvages points on difficult day in LMGT3
Whilst its Hypercar effort had a breakthrough Le Mans, and can be disappointed not to leave victorious, Team WRT’s LMGT3 programme endured a much more difficult time, with it lacking the pace to compete for class honours.
Despite this, the #32 M4 LMGT3 Evo of Darren Leung, Sean Gelael and Augusto Farfus put together a near-perfect run to finish seventh, scoring 12 championship points which could prove crucial come the end of the season.
This came off the back of the decision to front-load Leung’s drive time, with the Briton completing a quintuple stint lasting almost four hours during his opening run in the car.
“As a lot of people have noticed, I train a lot to try and give myself the mental capacity when I’m in the car in any stint to be able to drive better,” Leung said.
“So I feel like that sometimes gives me some deep reserves to be able to go, ‘Well, we can keep going here.’ It made sense at that time to try and just give us a strategic advantage and just be a little bit more aggressive.
“So it was always something that we could have in the pocket. We decided to play it today, because it was clear we couldn’t win it on outright pace. So we needed to try and come at it from another angle.”
“Main objective” achieved for Genesis on Le Mans debut
Genesis Magma Racing’s pair of GMR-001 Hypercars turned heads all week, first with their standout qualifying performance, and then with their race pace and reliability.
In the end, the #19 Genesis reached the chequered flag in 13th overall, whilst the #17 entry retired on Sunday morning with a suspension failure.
“Our first 24 Hours of Le Mans with Genesis Magma Racing ends on a positive note,” said Hyundai Motorsport president Cyril Abiteboul.
“Getting one car to the finish was our main objective, while the #17 unfortunately retired with suspension failure. We faced a number of reliability challenges which will be our priority moving forward. Despite this, the car showed strong potential throughout the week, especially during the first half of the race, where we were consistently fighting inside the top ten.
“While we faced challenges, the team showed great resilience, composure and teamwork. Everyone stayed focused, reacted calmly to every situation and worked together to achieve our goal. The drivers were also outstanding, managing both the race and the machinery exceptionally well. We leave Le Mans with the satisfaction of having achieved our main objective, but also with a very clear understanding of the areas we need to improve. Those priorities will help guide and unite us as we continue to build our foundations as a team.”
Habsburg: Alpine “filled with joy” after P6 finish
This year’s Le Mans didn’t produce the dream result that everyone in the Alpine Endurance Team dreamed of. Still, the Signatech-run Hypercar factory team leaves France with its head held high after delivering its best performance on home soil with the A424.
Ferdinand Habsburg, who was entrusted with bringing the #35 home at the end, said it was an emotional experience to finish sixth and on the lead lap.
“It was an honour to cross the line for Alpine at the end of the team’s last Le Mans,” he said. “The nostalgia was kicking in, but we are filled with joy with what we achieved. Nobody can take it away. We pushed hard, made no mistakes, no penalties, all the way to the end.
“It feels like we are just a couple of years away from being at the very top (with the A424).”
