Toyota Racing’s Nyck de Vries took over the lead early in the 22nd hour Sunday (June 14) from teammate Brendon Hartley. From there, de Vries and Kamui Kobayashi were able to build up their advantage, then hold on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Mike Conway. It is Toyota’s sixth Le Mans victory. For Kobayashi and Conway, it’s their second overall win. For de Vries, it is his first.
“I thought that we were out of contention many times,” de Vries told TNT Sports’ Jethro Bovington after the race. “We had an early puncture. We had a sensor issue that cost us a lot of straight-line speed. We were afraid that we simply didn’t have the speed. It just shows that Le Mans is never over until it’s done.”
The margin of victory was 10.913 seconds over BMW M Team WRT’s Robin Frijns, Rene Rast and Sheldon van der Linde. The No. 8 Toyota of Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa was third, then Cadillac Herta Team JOTA’s Louis Deletraz, Norman Nato and Will Stevens. Ferrari AF Corse’s James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi were fifth.
BMW M Team WRT’s Kevin Magnussen started from the overall pole, but got swamped at the first corner. Stevens was able to get past first, but lost the advantage to Magnussen’s teammate Rast at the second chicane on the Mulsanne Straight.
Toyota Racing struggled for much of the weekend entering the race (neither car qualified for Hyperpole No. 2 on Thursday). Because of this, they chose to do an alternate strategy. Both Conway and Buemi started outside of the top 10, but chose to undercut the rest of the class by stopping early.
Getting out in clear track allowed Buemi to turn in a series of quick laps. By the time Rast and the rest of the leaders made their first stops, Buemi was able to take the overall lead. Once there, he pulled out a big lead.
Ultimately, some of the contenders began to be whittled down. Dries Vanthoor had contact with the DKR Engineering LMP3 entry driven by John Farano in the sixth hour. That contact ripped off some bodywork.
The contact ripped a legality panel off of the BMW, which would have forced a stop anyway. However, it also eventually cut the right rear tire. The combination of having to limp for nearly six miles once the tire went down and required repairs put Vanthoor three laps down.
Ferrari AF Corse’s No. 50 had issues with the onboard fire extinguisher that resulted in a garage stay. Later on, the car stalled at Tertre Rouge during a safety car period and retired.
Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s No. 38 was one of the strongest teams early in the race. Sebastien Bourdais was leading just past halfway when his Cadillac VSeries.R suffered a power steering failure. That resulted in a 15-minute garage stay.
The issue later recurred at Mulsanne Corner, forcing the car to use the roundabout that regular traffic uses to get back onto the track. The car was retired shortly afterwards.
There were only two safety car periods during the race as most issues were covered with full course yellows or slow zones. The first one occurred in the eighth hour when Vista AF Corse’s Francesco Castellacci had contact with Proton Competition’s Giammarco Levorato and spun into the tires at Tertre Rouge.
The other occurred when Manthey Racing’s Ayhancan Guven suffered a steering failure exiting the Daytona chicane. His Porsche went straight into the tire barrier afterwards, resulting in the safety car so that the tire barrier could be properly reconstituted.
For much of the night following the No. 38 Cadillac’s issues, the race at the front was between the No. 12 Cadillac and the No. 20 BMW. However, Deletraz was forced to serve a drive-through penalty for speeding in the 17th hour. This came in addition to an extra pit stop for emergency service being required due to a badly timed full course yellow.
The result was that Deletraz was down to fourth, 40 seconds behind. He and his teammates were unable to make up that distance.
The No. 8 was the lead Toyota for the vast majority of the race. However, the team started to have issues with the left front brake surround. The team lost time trying to stop it from wobbling. Those issues dropped Hirakawa behind Kobayashi.
A good pit strategy and steady pace resulted in Kobayashi starting the final hour with a 20-second lead over Frijns. Over that time, Frijns was able to cut into the margin, but Kobayashi was able to hold on for the win.
In LMP2, Forestier Racing by Panis’ Esteban Masson was supposed to start on pole, but he was penalized one starting position by the stewards for his teammate Louis Rousset impeding a LMGT3 car during qualifying.
That put IDEC Sport’s Job van Uitert on pole. Van Uitert opened up a decent advantage early on. Meanwhile, Masson dropped back to sixth.
For much of the race, Duqueine Team was the dominant squad. Julien Andlauer, Doriane Pin and Richard Verschoor led easily and were looking good for victory. Then, trouble struck in the final hours. Verschoor was leading the car when he suffered a brake failure. That effectively put the team out on the spot.
The Duqueine trouble put Inter Europol Competition in first and second with Nick Yelloly’s No. 43 in front. At the time Yelloly went to the lead, he had only a small advantage over his teammate. However, he was able to expand his lead over the final couple of hours to successfully defend his class victory from last year with Tom Dillmann and Jakub Smiechowski.
The margin of victory was a full lap (due to positioning of the overall leaders) over teammates Reshad de Gerus, Bijoy Garg and Nico Mueller. Masson, Rousset and Oliver Gray were third, followed by Vector Sport’s Ryan Cullen, Pietro Fittipaldi and Vladislav Lomko. CLX Motorsport’s Ian Aguilera, Adrien Closmenil and Theodor Jensen were fifth.
In the LMP2 Pro-Am subclass, CrowdStrike Racing by APR’s Laurin Heinrich, George Kurtz and Alex Quinn took the victory and seventh in LMP2 overall. They were a lap ahead of AF Corse’s Ben Barnicoat, Francois Perrodo and Matthieu Vaxiviere. AO by TF’s James Allen, Dane Cameron and PJ Hyett were another lap back in third, then Algarve Pro Racing’s Jake Hughes, Michael Jensen and Enzo Trulli.
TDS Racing’s Mathias Beche, Kevin Estre and Tobias Lutke were in contention until Estre slid into the tires at Indianapolis. They were forced to settle for fifth after that.
In LMGT3, The Heart of Racing’s Mattia Drudi started on pole and opened up a decent gap early on. However, the first round of stops was rather painful. A slow stop cost the team the lead.
Akkodis ASP Team’s Jack Hawksworth was the beneficiary of the Aston Martin’s troubles as he elevated himself to the lead and pulled away. The two Akkodis ASP entries dominated the early hours of the race.
Ultimately, the race was a four-car race between the two Lexuses, The Heart of Racing’s No. 27 Aston Martin and the TF Sport Corvette. Ben Keating managed to finish his minimum six-hour drive-time in the first third of the race, leaving Nicky Catsburg and Jonny Edgar to share the remaining 16 hours by themselves.
A minimum number of driver changes allowed the duo to slowly expand their advantage. At one point, they had more than a minute over second-place.
In the final couple of hours, the lead stabilized around 28 seconds. Edgar was able to hold onto this advantage to take the LMGT3 class win.
TF Sport’s margin of victory was (due to positioning of the overall leaders) over Akkodis ASP Racing’s Hawksworth, Hadrien David and Tom van Rompuy. The Heart of Racing’s Jonny Adam, Eduardo Barrichello and Gray Newell were third, then the second Lexus of Jose Maria Lopez, Clemens Schmid and Petru Umbrarescu. Vista AF Corse’s No. 21 Ferrari for Francois Heriau, Simon Mann and Alessio Rovera finished fifth.
FIA World Endurance Championship 24 Hours of Le Mans Unofficial Results
Next up for the WEC is the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo at Interlagos on July 12. Coverage will begin at 10 a.m. ET on HBO Max with the green flag flying at 10:30 a.m. ET.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the Frontstretch Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.
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