24 Hours of Le Mans: Audi seals 12th victory

Audi secured its 12th victory at the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours this evening in a highly chaotic race dominated by Allan Simonsen’s death following a heavy crash in the #95 Aston Martin Vantage V8 just 10 minutes into the start.

The #2 Audi R18 e-tron driven by Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish and Loic Duval, lead comfortably for the majority of the event to eventually cross the line a full lap ahead of Toyota’s #8 TS030 piloted by Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Stephane Sarrazin.

Audi’s #3 R18 e-tron of Marc Gene, Lucas Di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis finished third overall, followed by the #7 Toyota TS030 (Alexander Wurz/Kazuki Nakajima/Nicolas Lapierre) which crashed in the hands of Nicolas Lapierre late into the race and lost 7 laps to the leaders.

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Porsche AG Team Manthey #92 Porsche 911 RSR, winner of the LMGTE Pro class

Despite spinning out when heavy rain hit the circuit near the 23rd hour, OAK Racing’s #35 Morgan-Nissan (Bertrand Baguette/Ricardo Gonzalez/Martin Plowman) managed to take top honors in the LMP2 class followed by its sister #24 car in second and G-Drive Racing’s #26 Oreca-Nissan in third.

Porsche dominated the GTE categories with Porsche AG Team Manthey securing a 1-2 in the LMGTE Pro class on their #92 and #91 911 RSRs, while the IMSA Performance Matmut team won the LMGTE Am class on the #76 997 GT3 RSR.

Click here for the FULL official results.