Toyota has finally scored its first victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours after dominating the 86th running of the event at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
The number eight TS050 of aFernando Alonso, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima led the sister car of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez home by more than two laps.Toyota, the only manufacturer left in the top LMP1 category, cruised to a widely-expected victory in which it never needed to run its cars to the maximum. As pre-race testing suggested its closest rivals were Rebellion’s two R-13s but the closest of these finished a dozen laps in arrears.
Rebellion’s promising line-up of Andre Lotterer, Neel Jani and Bruno Senna was delayed by a first-corner clash with one of the Toyotas. But their performance deficit of almost two-and-a-half seconds per lap ruled them completely out of contention. The sister car of Thomas Laurent, Mathias Beche and Gustavo Menezes claimed the final podium spot.
The LMP2 class-winning G-Drive machine of Jean-Eric Vergne, Andrea Pizzitola and Roman Rusinov came in fifth overall. The next 11 places were filled by LMP2 cars as a variety of problem wiped out Toyota’s token LMP1 opposition. These included the SMP car belonging to Jenson Button, Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Aleshin.
Last year’s outright winners Porsche refocused its efforts on GTE Pro after quitting LMP1 and was rewarded with victory for the 911 RSR of Michael Christensen, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor. The Stuttgart manufacturer claimed a one-two for its heritage liveried cars: the ‘pink pig’ led home a Rothmans-aping 911 driven by Gianmaria Bruni, Richard Lietz and Frederic Makowiecki.
The GTE-Am class was won by another Porsche: the Dempsey Proton 911 RSR piloted by Matt Campbell, Julien Andlauer and Christian Reid.
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World Endurance Championship
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- Toyota take another one-two after crashes for Ferrari and Cadillac at Spa
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- Peugeot celebrate Le Mans-winning 905 with special livery for centenary race
Dave
17th June 2018, 14:32
Finally the curse is broken.
Lancer033 (@lancer033)
17th June 2018, 18:24
funny how a car wins when there is no other car in its class…..
Invisiblekid
17th June 2018, 19:09
Er it’s Le Mans, that is no reason for them to be guaranteed a win. 2017 should be firmly in your mind
Alex McFarlane
17th June 2018, 19:34
Indeed, endurance racing is as much as beating the clock as beating the opponent.
After Porsche announced they were leaving, Toyota seriously considered following suit knowing they wouldn’t be tested against top level opposition, but I think they owed this one to themselves after so many near misses. They have proved in previous years, and last year especially, that they can compete with best, but luck can be a cruel mistress.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
17th June 2018, 20:10
Well if you have no competitor then you can run the car with much more safety margin.
SaraJ (@sjzelli)
17th June 2018, 23:45
Exactly. Can it really be called “conquering” when there’s no competition?
Sviat
18th June 2018, 9:35
2 @patrickl
See the number of laps they completed. So, yeah, they didn’t break the record, but they weren’t too slow either.
GeeMac (@geemac)
18th June 2018, 14:41
Audi weren’t exactly challenged by manufacturers in some of their early/mid 2000’s wins. Thank goodness for the likes of Pescarolo and Rebellion for keeping the big boys honest over the years…
Invisiblekid
18th June 2018, 9:05
@SaraJ Well conquer does not necessary mean win against competition.
Mioki (@okif1)
17th June 2018, 19:30
According to your statement it should also be funny a Mercedes F1 wins when there is no other car in its class…. but… ejem… there were other cars in the LMP1 the same way there are other cars in F1.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
17th June 2018, 20:23
@okif1 If Mercedes was only driving against privateer teams you would have had a point. They weren’t so you don’t.
Mercedes was outperforming Ferrari and Red Bull on a similar budget (especially if you take the power train part of the budget out). They all had the same chances, but Mercedes was simply better.
Just like when Audi was winning Le Mans (almost) every year, but at least they were fighting an actual competitor. Like Peugeot, Toyota and Porsche.
jamesluke2488
17th June 2018, 20:48
This is incorrect there was only Audi present between 2004 to 2006 with privateers making up the numbers , equally in 2003 there was just Bentley as the Vw group pulled support for Audi that year
matt90
17th June 2018, 21:26
And Audi didn’t exactly have to push hard in 2000-2.
SpaFrancorchamps (@spafrancorchamps)
17th June 2018, 22:29
Same can be said of Hamilton’s titles that were won in 2-car battles. Red Bull is a privateer too.. and they, McLaren and Williams are fine examples of what privateers can achieve in racing.
Just like Mercedes in the last 4 years, Toyota did a great job.
David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
18th June 2018, 4:37
@patrickl
How are whether teams Grandee determine their class instead of their….actual class? What do you make of the years (e.g. in F1) actually won by privateers (Lotus, Red Bull, Brawn, MRD, etc)?
Was it fair that the Cooper T51, an MR car, so easily dominated against a sea of FR competition? Were they even in the same class?
Patrickl (@patrickl)
18th June 2018, 7:37
jamesluke2488 , in 2005 Pescarolo was actually faster than Audi. But yes for 2 of those 20 years they had no competition.
@spafrancorchamps, Red Bull has the same budget as Ferrari and Mercedes.
Toyota did a horribly poor job really. Pretty much similar to what they did in F1. They have been trying (and losing) for 7 years and only won this year because all the competition had left.
@davidnotcoulthard It’s about the budget. You can’t expect a 150million team to beat a 400million team, but with 3 teams in the 400million categaory, they should be able to compete.
anon
18th June 2018, 7:38
@patrickl, for six straight years (2000 to 2006), Audi was the only manufacturer that entered into the 24 Hours of Le Mans, leaving them to compete against privateer entrants (the Bentley Speed 8 doesn’t count given that was basically an Audi R8 with slightly different bodywork).
It’s widely said that Audi basically bribed Porsche to withdraw their planned 9R3 LMP1 car, which would have otherwise raced from 2000 onwards, by promising to give them the chassis that formed Porsche’s Cayenne in return for Porsche withdrawing from the LMP1 class until 2010. http://www.mulsannescorner.com/porschelmp1.html
Furthermore, there is the accusation that, when Audi wanted to introduce their first diesel LMP1 car, the R10, the ACO intentionally skewed the regulations in their favour. That is especially the case when, barely two weeks after Audi revealed that the R10 was overweight and only a couple of weeks before the first race of the season, the ACO suddenly increased the minimum weight requirements for all LMP1 class cars to the same weight as the R10 – a move that even Audi was publicly admitted favoured them.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
18th June 2018, 18:43
Ah great an anon poster with wild rumours and accusations.
None of which even remotely negate that Toytota was driving this race without actual competition
When you insist on opening that can of worms, how about the facts that Toyota was helped tremendously by the current regulations? So they had no competition to start with and then still the rules were tweaked in their favor.
marksch (@marksch)
18th June 2018, 8:19
There were plenty of LMP1s, just no hybrids because VW got busted.
jamesluke2488
18th June 2018, 20:18
Patrickl you refer to Pescerolo as been faster than Audi great but they were an independant team just like Rebellion! Your statment was still npt fact!
In fact the Audi years from 2000 to 2006 are a direct copy of what we are getting now the Toyota years.
But the fact is Toyota should have won 2 years ago when both Audi and Porche were around but very bad luck cost them.
Joe (@jb784)
17th June 2018, 14:38
Congrats to Toyota and to the drivers
Sviat
17th June 2018, 14:44
A well-deserved win. Alonso was good during all his stints, especially when he needed to reduce the gap from 2:18 to 0:40 to the second car at night.
Congrats.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
17th June 2018, 15:29
Yeah, he earned his win.
Good now Indy.
Mickey's Miniature Grandpa
17th June 2018, 18:48
Every bit as much as Schumacher earned his 2005 US GP win.
Mike
17th June 2018, 20:37
1. It wasn’t Toyota’s fault that Audi and Porsche pulled out of the WEC.
2. It wasn’t Schumacher’s fault that Michelin produced shoddy tyres that couldn’t cope with the Indianapolis banking.
Both wins count.
Fair play to Toyota for spending the money to continue in the sport and also convincing Alonso to race. If they pulled out they would’ve have been ridiculed. If they stay in people say it’s too easy for them. So they are in a lose lose situation.
MEF
17th June 2018, 21:51
You need to become more interesting….
bogaaaa (@nosehair)
18th June 2018, 2:31
Hollow victory with no one to compete against, l wonder how FA really feels about it. the Ford and Porsche battle was entertaining.
Don
18th June 2018, 2:53
On to IndyCar for a chance to win the biggest race in the word (the 500) and a chance to with The Triple Crown!
budchekov (@budchekov)
17th June 2018, 14:44
Cudos to Velocity TV, I believe it’s the first time (in many years ?) the race was on for 24 hours (other than commercials) uninterrupted.
Pretty darn good coverage from the Eurosports chaps IMIO.
@Nice to see a happy FA :)
Dale
17th June 2018, 16:33
Agreed.
That was the most entertaining commentary in any motorsport … thoroughly enjoyed that & it added value to the racing.
F1 – & especially SkyF1 – can learn from that example.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
18th June 2018, 3:37
Indeed! I also liked the coach commentary with Tom Kristensen.
KGN11
17th June 2018, 14:45
Was the outcome ever in doubt?
John H (@john-h)
17th June 2018, 20:52
Yes, the other Toyota could have won. Sorry to state the obvious. Sure it was going to be one of them (like F1 Mercedes in 2014 and 2015), but the car with Alonso in it won.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
18th June 2018, 3:39
There’s also the possibility that neither Toyota would have finished or could have finished behind other LMP1 cars. When you are dealing with a 24 hour race that runs in the dark at night and so much traffic, anything can happen.
If any race victory ever counted, I suspect it would have to be at LeMans.
socksolid (@socksolid)
18th June 2018, 15:57
It was never a possibility the toyotas would finish behind the lmp1s. Fia or aco made everything to make sure toyota has upper hand. Longer stints, shorter stops. Only way for the other lmp1s to in was for both toyotas to crash. It was a total joke imho to have 2 cars and have it decided before the race that those 2 must win.
budchekov (@budchekov)
17th June 2018, 14:45
^In the USA.
Mashiat (@mashiat)
17th June 2018, 14:49
That stint at night from Alonso was very impressive. Now only the Indy 500 left…
On a side note though, has any driver ever won an F1 title and the WEC title?
EC (@dutch-1)
17th June 2018, 15:23
No idea but that would be much more impressive then a 24h LeMans. If Toyota had screwed up this time, they better stop competing at all. The only factory team in LMP1 and this was more like Mercedes in F1 competing only with Haas, so without Red Bull, Ferrari etc. Not winning that race would have been a real effort. And of course they put the 8 in front. That was determined even before the start.
ColdFly (@)
17th June 2018, 23:40
The only way they put the 8 in front is by giving it the best driver line up.
Especially Nakajima & Alonso deserved it squarely.
PT (@pt)
18th June 2018, 17:41
@dutch-1
You should have read the race updates and reports or listened to the commentaries after you woke up in the morning.
EC (@dutch-1)
18th June 2018, 17:56
???? I watched the race during the night until 04:00 but I don’t know what you mean. But I guess you think marketing has nothing to do with the outcome of this race and it’s all “real” sport. Ofcourse Alonso had to be the winner, that is a story they want to sell and with only one other Toyota as competition they could make that happen. Like in Spa where they even had to switch positions to put him in front……….
minnis (@minnis)
17th June 2018, 15:28
No F1 champion has won the WEC – Webber came the closest, winning the WEC championship in 2015, having narrowly missed the F1 title in 2010.
It should be noted that the WEC was only formed in 2012, but even looking further back to when the World Sportscar championship was around, no F1 champion won the title.
GnosticBrian (@gnosticbrian)
17th June 2018, 15:36
Stirling Moss was a pretty good sports car peddler but narrowly missed out on the F1 Championship.
anon
17th June 2018, 15:43
@mashiat, the problem is that sportscar racing didn’t really have an equivalent to the WEC until comparatively recently. I’m not sure if the World Championship for Sports Cars, which ran from the 1950’s to 1960’s, or the World Sportscar Championship, which was a forerunner of the WEC from the mid 1960’s to early 1980’s, even had a drivers title until the late 1970’s, or possibly even the early 1980’s (before that, only the constructors could win a title in the International Championship for Makes).
By the time that the European Endurance Championship, which was the successor to the WSC, arrived, most drivers tended to concentrate on just one series and specialised in that alone. Furthermore, Bellof’s death whilst racing in Spa started to make team managers much more nervous about loaning F1 drivers to another series.
After the collapse of the Group C class in the early 1990’s, there wasn’t really an equivalent top level championship for an extended period of time – you had a series of individual regional championships, such as the American or European Le Mans series, but there wasn’t an overarching World Championship status series until the Intercontinental Le Mans Series was created in 2010 (which then became the current World Endurance Championship).
If there had been a drivers title in sportscar racing at the time, then Mario Andretti might have been one example – he was part of Ferrari’s team when they won the title in 1972. Outside of that, one of the other major historic sportscar racing championships of the time was Can-Am, even if it was just a national level event. John Surtees, Denny Hulme and Alan Jones were all drivers who won an F1 title and the Can-Am title, but that is not quite the same given it was a national championship.
nase
17th June 2018, 16:08
Now that was informative.
Cristian (@panzik)
17th June 2018, 19:26
Only Hulkenberg could achieve it in the future
Mioki (@okif1)
17th June 2018, 19:36
Hulkenberg, exceptionally unlucky. After all those years in F1 he hasn’t step on the podium yet. I can’t imagine him matching Alonso’s achievements.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
18th June 2018, 7:40
Maybe if Hulkenberg goes to McLaren and Alonso leaves. McLaren and Ferrari improved by quite a bit after Alonso left.
Hulkenberg is performing better with his Renault engined car than Alonso does.
Joseph (@bigjoe)
18th June 2018, 12:18
@patrickl
Where’s the report button? @keithcollantine
Troll, setting a bad tone on racefans.net with unhinged driver bashing.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
18th June 2018, 18:39
@bigjoe Yes you truly are one. Good of you to admit it.
matt90
17th June 2018, 21:34
Jackie Ickx was probably closest, having won the WEC equivalent and being F1 runner-up twice. Had a drivers championship existed earlier, Moss would have probably won that and he was F1 runner-up four times.
Craig
17th June 2018, 14:56
Incredible drive by all drivers in the #8.
Alonso’s night stints were amazing – no mistakes and got them back into the race by taking 1:40 seconds out of #7 after Buemi was penalized for speeding in a slow zone.
It’s good to see him smiling.
Hope he bids farewell to the F1 circus and goes Indy so he can actually race again!!
Dandy
17th June 2018, 14:57
Thanks for letting him race WEC Zak Brown – it is a brilliant move!
GtisBetter (@)
17th June 2018, 14:57
Gratz Toyota! Finally. They did everything right. Also, there are some silly rules now in WEC.
nase
17th June 2018, 15:00
It didn’t look as though they were cruising, to be honest. In fact, they seemed to push pretty hard all race long, up to the point when Kobayashi made the race-deciding mistake. Quite a few mistakes, such as running wide or a half-spin by López, that didn’t really look all too cruise-y, were caught by the cameras. And as for not needing to run the cars to the maximum: Well, maybe. But then again, it didn’t look like that, with fastest laps that were a second quicker than in 2017, and stints like Alonso’s in the night, when he kept lapping in the 3:20s for hours in a row.
Yes, they didn’t have any real competition, but no, they didn’t cruise to victory.
Chema Carrasco (@chemakal)
17th June 2018, 15:19
+1
GtisBetter (@)
17th June 2018, 15:43
They did, which was basically all that we could ask them to do. Even with the new circuit lay-out, the distance driven was good.
anon
17th June 2018, 15:53
@passingisoverrated, they were going pretty hard at it in the opening stages of the race, where they were ahead of the average lap times required to set a new lap total record. As it was, despite the safety car periods, they still managed to set the third highest lap total over the past decade, suggesting that they weren’t holding much back during the race.
Mioki (@okif1)
17th June 2018, 19:44
I do not fully agree. It was clear that this year Toyota had to do something after the last 3 years but remember what happened last year to them. It is true Toyota was fighting only against Le Mans race, but not against other challengers. Nonetheless it is remarkable the good driving of Alonso and Nakajima. Buemi was average, but Alonso was always running in “sprint mode” reducing about 3 seconds per turn wich is not common driving for WEC drivers. It is refreshing seeing old school F1 driving style in current WEC races.
Alonso deserved this victory and Nakajima needed it after 2016. Contrats to the team, but specially to the drivers.
HK (@me4me)
17th June 2018, 15:04
What was it Alonso said about deserving tiles&wins? Pretty easy le Mans pick up for him.
Hugh (@hugh11)
17th June 2018, 15:16
No Le Mans win is easy…
Sush meerkat
17th June 2018, 17:00
@me4me
LOL
@Hugh11
I concur, it’s easier to French kiss a cobra than win Le Mans
Jabosha (@jabosha)
17th June 2018, 18:08
Correct.
Sun Siyuan (@peking901)
17th June 2018, 17:33
Easy for whom? For you to drop that word?
Pratyush P (@pratyushp276)
17th June 2018, 15:04
Top stuff by Alonso. He’s really proving his mettle in the WEC, and it was particularly exciting to see him reel him Lopez in the first stint and the progress he made after the safety car restart today morning. Well deserved, and he droved like a seasoned WEC driver.
Pratyush P (@pratyushp276)
17th June 2018, 15:04
Drove*. Ugh.
PT (@pt)
18th June 2018, 17:43
U mean, second stint?
Peter Gareth
17th June 2018, 15:05
it was a good race although i thought the tv coverage was abysmal.
the commentary on eurosport was dreadful, carlton kirby is cringe-worthy & has been for well over a decade so i can’t understand why he continues to be used. Same with Mark Cole, For someone that’s been doing this for as long as he has it’s ridiculous that he continues to misidentify corners & get as much wrong as he does.
there poor coverage & atrocious choice of commentators is a big reason why i avoid that channel as much as possible in terms of motorsport now. tit is absurd that they keep forcing us to listen to there own terrible commentary teams when some of the series they show produce there own, much better commentary (WEC & Formula E in particular).
Dreadful, Simply dreadful.
Tristan (@skipgamer)
17th June 2018, 15:48
I streamed radiolemans.co on youtube with another miscellaneous youtube stream doing footage with no audio. It was all very entertaining watching this way. No breaks, good knowledgeable commentary where they were free to be frank about the flaws with the product.
If only F1 was so easily accessible :X
Invisiblekid
17th June 2018, 19:15
Liked it being on for more or less 24hrs, but the the commentary guys seem to get stupider each year with no clues on the rules, which granted some are very silly this year.
I mean come on, asking if the teams can do anything to the car for a stop and go penalty!?
Alex McFarlane
17th June 2018, 19:54
By contrast, although they’re not perfect I have enjoyed their non-pretentious punditry the last couple of years.
Sometimes commentators can get overtaken by their own sense of self-importance, which I find more of a turn-off.
Gary
18th June 2018, 8:56
My favorite was when they were doing Q&A on Twitter, someone asked if Corvette Racing still use OHV engines, their answer was “Duh, I don’t know…”
I mean seriously, if you are that uninformed you should not be hosting the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Francorchamps (@francorchamps17)
17th June 2018, 15:06
EoT completely failed. Non-hybrid LMP1s were supposed to be 0,5% slower, so about 1 lap down at the end of the race.
Both Toyota made many mistakes (2 penalties, the #7 not stopping for fuel and running half a lap at 80kph, Lopez spinning) and yet finished 10 laps in front of the cloest LMP1. What a joke.
Anyway sorry to complain, the battle in GT was awesome.
Pratyush P (@pratyushp276)
17th June 2018, 15:16
Peter Gareth – the point you made about the commentary is absolutely true. Since no channel in my country telecasts the race live, I was watching streams off the internet and had them synced to Radio Le Mans commentary, who did a solid, solid job of explaining stuff (especially considering the fact that this was only the second ever Le Mans I’d watched).
PT (@pt)
18th June 2018, 17:54
I’m from India too, and I was doing the same. But I had paid for the Le Mans package on the WEC site but I didn’t find any streaming. Was gutted. And from then I was grabbing streams from here and there. The streams were being taken down by the ACO in between, so I had to resort to onboard streams from Ford and Rebellion with the Radio Le Mans commentary on Day 2. But fortunately I could watch the livestreaming of the final hours with Alonso’s celebrations. I wanted to watch that – never saw Alonso celebrate so spontaneously since his Valencia GP win in 2012!
The official broadcast had Martin Haven and Karun Chandhok commenting. Chandhok is the Alonso of commentating and I wanted to hear his inputs. Too bad – Indians can’t hear an Indian commentator. Hope some sports channel – Sony networks, Neo, someone gives us Le Mans coverage next year.
Btw, I’m watching Pikes Peak on June 30th. I’ve signed up for their live streaming and can’t wait to watch!
StephenH
17th June 2018, 15:24
The WEC badly needed a decent customer programme. Even a year old privateer 919 or R18 would have provided decent opposition to Toyota rather than the ‘LMP1-B’ cars they were up against.
GTE-Pro is always entertaining though.
anon
17th June 2018, 15:59
The problem is that both Porsche and Audi killed off their customer programmes years ago – I believe that Colin Kolles said that Dr Ullrich, the head of Audi’s motorsports division at the time, that the VW Group had decided that it would not allow any customers to beat the factory team, even if they were still winning the race with one of their cars, and therefore they just refused to sell any more cars to customers (even the ones that they did briefly sell to Kolles was sabotaged by having all of the electrical systems stripped out, which was done solely to make it almost impossible for Kolles to beat the factory teams).
Andrew in Atlanta
17th June 2018, 20:23
Kolles was shown to be full of hot air after that fiasco with the R10s. It’s a matter of the cars being more advanced and requiring a well trained crew that not being available so they wouldn’t lose. Joest had been asked and said the only reason they could have run a private entry was their experience running the cars, for a new team it would be impossible
Duncan Snowden
17th June 2018, 15:25
Le Mans is always entertaining, and with Toyota’s record nobody can say they only had to turn up. If anyone ever deserved it, it’s them. But let’s be honest here: if that had been an F1 race, the usual suspects would be all over this place telling us how much sleep they got in. And the new fuel regs are idiotic. Bonus points to Google for pulling Rebellion’s live feed off YouTube at 5am for unspecified “policy violations”, too.
But I don’t want to sound churlish. We’ve been spoilt in recent years with some absolute edge-of-the-seat nailbiters. They can’t all be like that. Well done, Toyota, G-Drive, the pink pig guys, and Dempsey-Proton. There should be prizes just for finishing this madness, let alone finishing first.
(Nerd fact: Le Mans is the historic capital of the province of Maine. The winning Toyota drove a distance almost equivalent, as the crow flies, from the circuit to Portland, the capital of the US state of Maine. Seriously, another lap or two would have done it.)
GnosticBrian (@gnosticbrian)
17th June 2018, 15:33
Who invented the so-called “Triple Crown” and when?
In his lifetime, was Graham Hill ever called the holder of the “Triple Crown”?
Tristan (@skipgamer)
17th June 2018, 16:48
Alonso, in a quest for glory… When he realised he has little chance at further F1 drivers championships.
James Coulee
17th June 2018, 19:27
He mentioned it himself (though in his view, the F1 slice of the Crown was the World Championship and not the Monaco GP).
James Coulee
17th June 2018, 19:28
(I mean Graham Hill himself, of course.)
falken (@falken)
17th June 2018, 15:33
So who’s going to take ALO seat in F1 next year so he can go full time Indy?
nase
17th June 2018, 15:40
Yawn.
Steven Robertson (@emu55)
17th June 2018, 15:43
If anything, he’ll stay in F1 now and just do the Indy 500, if he’s got a sniff of a third F1 title, he won’t budge.
falken (@falken)
17th June 2018, 16:16
Not with MCL he hasn’t. And no spots open in the top 6 cars…
skydiverian (@skydiverian)
17th June 2018, 17:47
I’d argue that potentially winning an IndyCar title would be a bigger deal than a 3rd F1 championship. That and he would have a good chance stateside, which he’s unlikely to get in F1 anytime soon.
Dak
17th June 2018, 19:30
I agree. He shouldn’t he even care about F1 anymore. The last 7 or 8 titles in F1 were won more because of the car than the driver.
Now that he got a taste of racing and not being a backmarker in a procession, I hope he either goes to Indy or even Formula E.
He won his 2 tiles against Schuey at a young age – he’s proved he’s one of the best of all time in F1.
Esploratore (@esploratore)
18th June 2018, 1:21
A title against raikkonen with a faster car that couldn’t finish races, another against a past peak schumacher, by all means, his seasons were good, very few mistakes, but he was advantaged in both cases by circumstances. I think he later on proved to be one of the top 10 in f1, during seasons where he challenged for the title to the last race with a very slow ferrari compared to red bull.
Joseph (@bigjoe)
19th June 2018, 9:58
@esploratore
Past peak Schumacher? MS performed in the second half of 2006 exactly how he always did with the superior car. In fact he probably made less errors and finally stopped cracking under pressure in 2006.
FlyingLobster27
17th June 2018, 15:35
Good on Toyota, they could have had a distance record if there had been just one less Safety Car period. They came well-prepared, but ultimately Le Mans threw nothing untoward at them – “Le Mans lets you win”, Alex Wurz once said, and boy did it this time…
Overall, the race promised little and delivered accordingly. By 24-hour race standards, it was poor, professional and apathetic. It’ll probably be remembered as “the one Toyota and that bloke who wanted the Triple Crown won”, and nothing more. Pity, because Toyota’s first triumph after 30 years of hurt deserved something more epic.
George (@george)
17th June 2018, 15:46
Worst Le Mans race I’ve watched. Good GT and LMP2 battles at the start at least, but they’d both petered out by morning. LMP1 was a joke.
Bob C.
17th June 2018, 17:30
We may have been watching at different times?
The half-hour+ wheel-to-wheel nose-to-bumper Porche/Ford battle for second in GT Pro at about the 20 hour mark was some of the best edge-of-seat racing I have enjoyed in a very long time.
George (@george)
17th June 2018, 18:14
Yeah I must have missed that, when I went to bed and when I got up the Porsches were out on their own so assumed it had always been that way.
Alex McFarlane
17th June 2018, 19:25
Who won out in the end? Some questionable driving on the Porsche driver’s part, he’d have been sin-binned if he tried that in F1.
SpaFrancorchamps (@spafrancorchamps)
17th June 2018, 22:38
Luckily this isn’t F1.
Bob C.
18th June 2018, 6:21
The Porsche 91 ended up ahead. It was amazing: for about half an hour they were never more than .7 seconds apart, trading places five or six times during the fight. At the end, Porsche 91 ended up second, and the Ford 68 third.
There was a message on the screen that the Porsche driver (Frédéric Makowiecki, I believe) was under investigation for “Quality of driving” (there’s a term to love!), but I believe nothing came of it. Also, to my (non-expert) eyes, both drivers were fighting equally to the limit, but not over it. If anything, it would have been the classic schoolyard unresolvable matter of “who started it”.
Laugh of the race for me was the Danish commentator when the Porsche dove into the pit with the Ford glued to his rear: “I am not really sure that the Ford is making a pit stop – he may just be following from habit“.
Gary
18th June 2018, 9:06
I love Le Mans, it’s my favorite race of the year, by far, nothing else comes close. I’ve been eight times, as far back as 1981, as recently as 2017. I even went with a team one year. Le Mans still has the feel of racing only for the passion and the challenge, and a wide variety of cars and technology, something which is unfortunately missing in today’s corporate spec racing and “Global Media and Entertainment Branded Content”, i.e. Liberty Media’s F1.
ZUKMaN
17th June 2018, 15:48
I thought Petrov would bin that BR1-SMP but instead Button did.
nase
17th June 2018, 16:04
I think you might be confusing a few things. Button didn’t ‘bin his car, the engine blew up while he was at the wheel.
However, there was indeed a (relatively) prominent ex-F1 driver who single-handedly binned his car, and that was Paul di Resta.
Gary
17th June 2018, 15:53
Here’s my prediction. We will never, ever, see Lewis Hamilton at Le Mans, or in any category outside F1.
YellowSubmarine
17th June 2018, 18:18
Godwin’s law for f1 discussions:
As an online f1 discussion grows longer, the probability of it descending into an argument about Lewis Hamilton approaches 1.
Robbie (@robbie)
17th June 2018, 18:27
Lol
Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
17th June 2018, 19:51
Reducto ad Hamiltonum
Ju88sy (@ju88sy)
17th June 2018, 19:54
Haha so true, god bless the trolls!
Esploratore (@esploratore)
18th June 2018, 1:24
Ahaha, that’s a good one!
Gary
18th June 2018, 9:08
Good one. But make the case that I’m wrong.