June 15, 2015 – Porsche sealed an historic victory today in the 83rd running of the Le Mans 24 Hours, the German marque finishing a convincing first and second in front of 263,500 spectators to break Audi’s stranglehold on the jewel in the crown of sportscar racing. Nico Hülkenberg became the first driver to win the race overall at his first attempt since Laurent Aiello in 1998, the year of Porsche’s last overall victory, and the first current F1 driver to win since Johnny Herbert and Bertrand Gachot in 1991.
The Formula One driver, together with his team mates Nick Tandy of Britain and Earl Bamber of New Zealand, didn’t put a foot wrong in their No. 19 Porsche 919 Hybrid and headed home Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard in the No.17 entry.
Audi was 3rd and 4th after uncharacteristically encountering a number of minor setbacks in the second half of the race when all three cars ended up in the garage at some point for some repairs or component checks. 2014 winners Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler had to settle for 3rd place this year but Lotterer had the consolation of setting a new race lap record of 3m17.475 on lap 337.
The no18 Porsche 919, which had started the race on pole position, wasn’t able to capitilise on the pace the team had shown in qualifying and practice. After several excursions and other issues the car driven by Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb came home in 5th place, four laps behind.
The no9 Audi, which had been the leading challenger to the Porsche powertrain, also hit technical trouble and after a long stop to fit a new driveshaft the car took the chequered flag in 7th overall in between the two Toyotas
World Champions Toyota couldn’t fulfil their dreams of Le Mans glory in 2015 but both TS040s got to the chequered flag in 6th and 8th places, the no2 Toyota finishing 8 laps behind the winners and one lap ahead of the no1 TS040.
Nissan had to work extremely hard on the race debut of the GT-R LM NISMO at Le Mans and in the WEC and it was always going to be a challenge for the Japanese team. However the no22 car of Harry Tincknell, Michael Krumm and Alex Buncombe took the chequered flag to achieve one of the goals set ahead of the event.