Porsche win Le Mans after last lap Toyota agony

Porsche won its 18th 24 Hours of Le Mans as a constructor today.

A perfectly-timed charge to the front saw #62 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari jump ahead of #88 Abu Dhabi-Porton Racing Porsche to take victory by a whole lap while the Italian manufacturer grabs a double rostrum with #83 AF Corse Ferrari in third position. What they didn’t know is that things would go more than slightly wrong for Toyota.

It handed victory to the number two Porsche shared by Neel Jani, Roland Dumas and Marc Lieb.

The #7 Audi dropped out of contention for victory early on, and the first hint of reliability problems for Jarvis’ auto came in the early evening when a door had to be replaced, and then a slightly longer stop required some work to be done to the vehicle in the garage. At first it seemed to be a minor malfunction, that the auto could limp home over the last five minutes and its 70 second lead would be a big enough margin to secure a win.

A second Toyota TS050 followed in second place, with an Audi R18 rounding out the podium in third in what surely will go down as one of the most memorable Le Mans finishes in history.

With just three minutes to go, Toyota No. 5 held a lead of half a minute over the Porsche No. 2 team.

News from elsewhere in that class saw the #98 Aston Martin Racing entry of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda officially retire from the 84th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans after it pulled off on the run to the Dunlop Curves with gearbox issues. It’s an unbelievable end for a auto that was so reliable for the other 23 hours and 50 minutes of the race. The Ford GT was among the leaders in its class throughout the race in what has turned out to be a successful…

Brad Pitt was there to wave the tricolour to start the race, Patrick Dempsey and Jackie Chan are both Le Mans team owners, and Keanu Reeves and Jason Statham completed the list of stars on the grid.

Whether you watched the race for your favorite team, or simply enjoyed adrenaline-packed moments such as the Audi R8 safety auto powerslide in the wet (video below), this year’s race has kept us all on our toes. Toyota TS 050 No. 6-not No. 5-was classified as winning second place.

Porsche finished first overall in the P1 class.