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Le Mans 2016 – Emotional Highs & Lows

An unexpected victory for Porsche at Le Mans. [Photo by Porsche Motorsport]

An unexpected victory for Porsche at Le Mans. [Photo by Porsche Motorsport]

By Jack Webster & Eddie LePine

The 2016 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is going to be one for the history books. Probably never in the history of motorsport has there been so much emotion on display in the last few minutes of a motor race.

One minute, the Toyota TS050 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima was mere minutes from winning Le Mans, and in the next minute Nakajima is radioing to his crew, “I have no power”, as his car slowed on the next to the last lap of the race. 23+ hours of hard racing, 23+ hours of running at the top of the charts, 23+ hours of perfect pit stops, perfect driving and no problems, only to have it all vanish in the blink of an eye, a tick of the clock.

Nakajima managed to nurse the wounded Toyota around the circuit before coming to a stop on the front straight, just past the start/finish line on what would have been his last lap, only to come to a stop, helpless to get the car moving. Just then the second place Porsche 919 Hybrid of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb came over the line to take the lead on the last lap of the race to snatch victory from the poor Toyota Gazoo squad.

To say that everyone was stunned would be an understatement. The Toyota group was in disbelief. How can you come so close only to have victory taken away so cruelly, so unexpectedly?

Just as stunned was the Porsche team, who one second was resigned to settling for second place, and the next handed the win in the largest and most famous endurance race in the world. The range of emotions from the Toyota to the Porsche garages was incredible, and rightly so.

Motor racing is a tough business, a tough sport. In no other sport do the participants literally put their lives on the line to compete. In no other sport can the tension build to such a height, the ecstasy of the potential win written on the faces of the leading team, only to be totally reversed in seconds – mere seconds – of a 24 hour contest. In no other sport are the fortunes of the second place contender reversed so quickly from defeat to victory as well. As Ernest Hemmingway so accurately said many years ago, “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing and mountain climbing, all the rest are merely games.” That was proven today at Le Mans. This was no game.

So, for the record, Porsche survived 24 hours of racing at Le Mans to pull off a win that was totally unexpected in the final minutes of the race. Toyota, with their teammate #6 car managed 2nd place after the #5 car was not classified at the finish due to its slow pace on the final lap, and Audi was surprised to take 3rd overall in a race that they would most likely like to forget.

As Romain Dumas of the winning #2 Porsche said, “For sure we feel sorry for Toyota. It was a great race. But of course if you get the chance to win Le Mans, you won’t say ‘no thank you’.”

His feelings were echoed by teammate Neel Jani. “I feel heartbroken for the Toyota drivers. I think every racing driver knows what this feels like. I still have no words to describe winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This is really surreal…this win is very, very special.”

Third driver Marc Lieb added, “I gave everything I had – and now I think I have to digest what all has happened today.”

Toyota driver Anthony Davidson summed up his feelings: “That was an unbelievable end to such a difficult race. You couldn’t have written the way it ended; no one would ever have believed a movie if it ended like this. So to actually live through the experience is pretty hard to take, but it will make us stronger and we’ll be back.”

He’s right. If this were a movie, no one would believe it. But his last line is the most telling: it will make us stronger and we’ll be back. That is the true spirit of a champion, the true spirit of motor racing.

With the drama for the overall victory, the LMGTE-Pro battle was almost overshadowed. Ford made a triumphant return to Le Mans and won class 50 years after their first win in 1966. It was a Ford, Ferrari battle for the entire 24 hours, with Ford taking top honors with the #68 car driven by Joey Hand, Dirk Müller and Sebastien Bourdais. The win wasn’t without controversy, with Ford filing a protest against Ferrari and Ferrari filing a protest against Ford, but in the end, the results were unaffected. Ford was first, followed by the Risi Ferrari of Fisichella, Vilander and Malucelli, with Fords also taking 3rd and 4th in class. For the usually competitive Corvette team, it was not a good race. One car crashed out, the other finished 7th in class, 4 laps behind the class winner. But Corvette will be back. There is some work to be done to get on par with the Fords, which are almost prototype race cars, but Corvette will make the necessary adjustments to get back on top.

Winning Ford driver Joey Hand said: “It’s a big deal to come back here 50 years after the Ford win in 1966. We said we wanted to win, but to actually do it is huge.”

Bourdais added: “It’s an unbelievable feeling to be able to make this happen.”

In LMGTE-Am, Bill Sweedler, Towsend Bell and Jeffrey Segal scored a fine class victory in their Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 Italia, winning by almost 3 minutes over the AF Corse Ferrari F458.

In LMP2, the Signatech Alpine-Nissan of Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre and Stephane Richelmi took the class honors over the G-Drive Racing Oreca.

So, the 2016 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is finished. The victors will savor their victory; the vanquished will regroup and return. Such is the nature of competition; such is the nature of motor racing. After all, it is a true sport, not just a game.

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