24 Hours of Le Mans 2015

The  was the 83rd running of the infamous 24 Hours of Le Mans, held at the Circuit de la Sarthe on the 13th/14th of June 2015. It was considered to be one of the most open races for many years, with Audi, Toyota, Porsche and Nissan all competing in LMP1 for victory. The race also formed part of the 2015 World Endurance Championship, with double points awarded to each class winner, with LMP1 joined by LMP2, GTE Pro and GTE Am.

Over the course of the race, Audi's three cars were all hit by problems, while Toyota found themselves off the pace and Nissan struggled to get to grips with their innovative new design. This left the # 19 Porsche 919 Hybrid to take victory from the # 17 car by a lap. At the wheel of the race winning car were Nick Tandy, and two rookies in Earl Bamber and, with Hulkenberg becoming the first active Formula One driver to win the race since Johnny Herbert.

Hong Kong based KCMG won the LMP2 class with their trio, consisting of Matthew Howson, Richard Bradley and Nicolas Lapierre. The second factory backed Corvette CR-7 of Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Jordan Taylor claimed the GTE Pro category, a victory made all the more emotional by the fact that the sister car was written off earlier in the week. GTE Am saw Russian outfit SMP Racing claim the honours, as Viktor Shaitar, Aleksey Basov and Andrea Bertolini took victory, overtaking the # 97 Aston Martin (which was leading from early on) in the final hour after the latter crashed out.

Background
The World Endurance Championship was just two rounds old heading into the Le Mans week, with the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in May. Audi's # 7 Audi R18 e-tron Quattro of, and  (incidently the defending winners of the Le Mans 24 Hours) led the Championship after winning the opening season races, leading the # 18 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb. Audi led the manufacturers battle, with Porsche second and Toyota third, with all three marques battled with each other at every round.

In Le Mans terms, Nissan debuted their innovative GT-R LM Nismo (featuring front wheel drive and a front mounted engined), while Rebellion Racing brought their new R-One, although their power disadvantage to the hybrid manufacturers meant they were effectively out of the running.

Entries
As usual, the entries for the 24 Hours of Le Mans were announced over the winter of 2014, with the invitations to the winners of various series and races revealed first. The entrants to the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship were also handed automatic entries to the race, although those invited through victory may not change categories and take their place on the 2015 grid. Entrants from the European Le Mans Series, Asian Le Mans Series and TUDOR United SportsCar Championship were also considered for entry.

Invitations
The class winners from the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2014 were all invited to take part, and all took their entries for the race. AF Corse won the 2014 European Le Mans Series in the GTE Pro category but, as they had already won their entry through Le Mans, SMP Racing were given their entry. USCC Overall runners up Wayne Taylor Racing were also invited to race in France, as were the winners of the Asian Le Mans Series, OAK Racing.


 * * Wayne Taylor Racing did not enter the 24 Hours of Le Mans despite being awarded a place.
 * † The United SportsCar Championship may nominate entries to the ACO rather than base them on results.

Full Entry List
As mentioned above, teams that had entered the World Endurance Championship in 2015 were also granted entry to Le Mans. These entries were then supplemented by additional entry applications from other Endurance competing teams. Manufacturer based teams were given priority over private entries, while a list of five reserves was also included. Garage 56, in recent seasons reserved for a unique/experimental entry such as the DeltaWing, was filled with a regular entry.


 * * Riley Motorsports were promoted from the reserve list.

Qualifying
Qualifying for the race was held over three sessions after the conclusion of scrutineering on Wednesday and Thursday before the weekend. The Wednesday night session was held from 22:00 to midnight, with an evening session from 19:00 to 21:00 on Thursday. Qualifying was then scheduled to conclude at midnight on Thursday, with a final two hour session from 22:00, when the track is, traditionally, at its fastest.

Session One
Qualifying started brightly, both literally (being the first session in the Le Mans week to be held in the dry) and figuratively, with the lap record being broken twice in the early minutes. The first man to break the 2008 record was Timo Bernhard in the #17 on his first flying lap, just five minutes into the session, beating the record by eight tenths of a second. Then Neel Jani, just moments after Bernhard crossed the line, recorded a time of 3:16.887 in the ~18 Porsche 919 Hybrid, although was unable to match his time later on. Audi, it seemed, were biding their time, three seconds off of Porsche's time, with Toyota and Nissan further back.

Richard Bradley also took little time in setting foot on the top of the time sheets, taking the KCMG to provisional pole in LMP2 in the opening minutes. They found themselves a second ahead of their nearest challengers Greaves Motorsport, whom would cause the only stoppage in the session after an accident a Mulsanne corner. Jota Sport, defending their LMP2 crown in Le Mans, found themselves in third, ahead of the first of the new BR Engineering prototypes being run by SMP Racing.

The GTE-Pros were topped by the Aston Martin Racing V8 squad in the #99 Aston Martin Vantage V8, ahead of the GTE-Am leaders, the #98 Vantage V8 run by the Aston Martin Racing team. A third Aston Martin followed, with Corvette Racing-GM the closest to the British marque in GTE-Pro with their #63 Chevrolet Corvette C7R. AF Corse's #71 lead the anti-Aston charge in GTE-Am for a time, until their fastest times were removed for exceeding track limits, with their counterparts in the #83 machine taking over the torch overnight.

Session Two
A storm was scheduled to hit Le Mans and the Circuit de la Sarthe on Thursday evening, affecting both of the final sessions, although clear skies as the evening session went on showed this was an incorrect report. Hot and humid conditions meant that the engines weren't running at their full potential as dusk settled over la Sarthe, with the #17 Porsche moving further ahead of the #8 Audi R18 e-tron Quattro, while improved the #7 Audi's time to move into fifth, still a second behind the final Porsche. Toyota and Nissan remained well off the pace, while Rebellion Racing began to encroach a little further into the top ten times with both their cars.

Team SARD Morand hit problems during the session and failed to set a time, as status quo ruled in LMP2, with only a couple of cars setting times better than they had on Wednesday. Meanwhile, in GTE-Pro, Jan Magnussen was at the wheel of the #63 Corvette once again, and was starting to push the car closer to the Wednesday times, until debris got caught in the throttle system of the C7R. This caused the throttle to stay wide open as the Dane went through the Porsche Curves, meaning there was little he could do to avoid first the armco and then concrete wall in the second part of the infamous chicane.

Magnussen was taken to hospital for checks, while the session itself was ended with half an hour left on the clock, with the ACO announcing that Q3 would be extended by half an hour instead. The #63 C7R, meanwhile, was dragged back to the pits, with Corvette announcing shortly afterwards that the car would be rebuilt, but not in time for Saturday. The #63 Corvette was promptly removed from the starting list, with the crew set to work on the #64 car to ensure that the same issue did not affect that car too.

Session Three
Despite cooler air, a gripier circuit and an extra half an hour of running, the provisional pole time set by Jani remained unbeaten through the final session, with Porsche, Audi and Toyota all seeming to favour race setup instead. Only Nissan found themselves improving, the #22 car creeping into a second of the Team ByKolles car, although their joy would be brief. All three Nissan Nismos, and the ByKolles car, were all relegated to the back of the LMP grid at the end of the session as they had all failed to set a time within 110% of the pole time for LMP1, meaning they would have to fight their way past the LMP2 field as well, which they were on a par with in terms of pace.

G-Drive Racing put in a late charge to climb to second in LMP2 behind KCMG, who also held on to their pole time despite the fact it had been set so early on. Meanwhile, the AF Corse cars in both GTE-Pro and GTE-Am closed in on the Aston Martins at the top of their classes, with both the #51 and #71 Ferrari 458 Italia GT2s making up for their disallowed times, while the #64 Corvette claimed ninth in class, unable to match the times of the European entries.

Qualifying Result
So Porsche claimed their first Le Mans pole position since the 1997 race, which was also their sixth in a row in the World Endurance Championship. They also claimed the circuit record since its latest reconfiguration, breaking the old time by over a second and a half under a second, despite Neel Jani setting the time on his first run in the car. Penalties were also applied to various LMP cars for various reasons.

Bold indicates the fastest time for each class in each session, with the name of the fastest car in each class also in bold. Italics show each car's fastest time in the entire qualifying session.
 * * Cars 4, 21, 22 and 23 were all relegated to the back of the Le Mans Prototype grid for failing to set a time within 110% of the LMP1 fastest time.
 * † also relegated to the back of the LMP grid for failing to set a time within the 110% time for LMP2.
 * ‡ The #71 AF Corse car was demoted to the back of the GTE grid as they failed to have all three drivers set a time within the 120% fastest time of the GTE-Pro class.
 * § The #63 Corvette Racing-GM entry was withdrawn after Jan Magnussen's accident on Thursday evening.
 * ⁁ Team AAI's #68 entry was relegated to the back of the grid as one of its drivers failed to set a time within the 120% time of the pole sitter in GTE-Am.

Race
With the Tricolour set to be waved at three o'clock in Le Mans on Saturday, the mornings entertainment was provided by a variety of races. The first in action was the Le Mans Classic, featuring cars from the 1950s and 60s races, before an Aston Martin race was released on the circuit, featuring a B09/60, although the former LMP1 car started a lap down. A heavy crash during that race ended the morning's entertainment, with the focus fully on the 55 cars set to start the 83rd edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Report
The cars rolled through the Ford Chicane on the stroke of three o'clock on Saturday, the 13th of June, with the Tricolour dropping to start the race. It was grid order heading into the Dunlop Chicane for the first time, before a dog fight opened up between the last two Porsche 919 Hybrids and the first two Audi R18 e-tron Quattros down the Mulsanne and beyond. The #9 Audi was left to fight the [{Toyota|Toyotas]] while its sister cars mixed up with the #19 Porsche, taking the third of the Porsches before the end of the first lap.

Timo Bernhard was quick to put a small gap between himself and the #18 machine, which was now brawling with three Audis and the #17 car, with Toyota's cars now falling away. Nissan, meanwhile, missed the start with their #23 machine after a clutch issue in the warm-up, leaving their other two cars to mix it up with the LMP2 field, with Harry Tincknell and slowly rising through the field as the first hour progressed. The leading cars in LMP2 seemed locked together all throught the first hour, although the KCMG car remained stubbornly at the head of the field.

The end of the first hour saw the first retirement of the race, with the #92 GTE-Pro entry of Porsche Team Manthey destroying its own engine into the first chicane on the Mulsanne. The car spun on its own oil, while the #13 Rebellion R-One and #42 Strakka cars came together in avoidance. The Rebellion found itself beached in the gravel, while the Strakka car limped back to the pits. The #92 Porsche, meanwhile, pulled over on the exit of the chicane, set ablaze by the oil sprayed onto its exhaust, although the fire was put out quickly. Regardless, the first safety car of the day emerged, with the new Slow Zone system saved for another incident.

Result
So, Porsche claimed their first Le Mans victory in seventeen years, with becoming the first driver since Johnny Herbert in 1991 to win the race while competing in Formula One. KCMG completed their first LMP2 victory since competing in Le Mans in 2013, while the #64 Corvette Racing-GM entry claimed an emotional victory in GTE-Pro. SMP Racing claimed the final honours on offer by winning GTE-Am, benefitting from the demise of the #98 Aston Martin Vantage V8 in the final hour.

The final result of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2015 is displayed below, with class winners shown in bold. Points scored for the WEC entries is also displayed, while the fastest lap setter in each class is displayed in italics.
 * * The #98 Aston Martin Racing entry crashed in the final hour, but had completed 70% of the race distance.
 * † The #22 Nissan GT-R LM Nismo finished the final lap of the race, but did not complete 70% of the race distance.
 * ‡ Car #4 disqualified from the result due to a driver weight ballast discrepancy.
 * § The #63 Corvette Racing-GM entry was withdrawn after Jan Magnussen's accident on Thursday evening.

WEC Standings
The various WEC championships on offer in 2015 were left wide open depite the double points available in Le Mans. , and  held a 20 point lead over Nick Tandy, the first of the Porsche backed drivers in the World Endurance Drivers Championship. The reverse was true in the Manufacturers battle, with Porsche's strong display meaning they held a 16 point lead over Audi, overturning their rival's total in the process. Rebellion Racing led the way in the Private LMP1 teams' Championship, despite only attending one race so far.