2015 24 Hours of Le Mans
The 83rd 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 83e 24 Heures du Mans) was a 24-hour automobile endurance event for teams of three drivers each entering Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars held from 10 to 14 June 2015 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, close to Le Mans, France. It was the 83rd running of the 24 Hour race organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest as well as the third round of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship. A test day was held two weeks prior to the race on 31 May. A record-breaking 263,500 people attended the event.
A Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Neel Jani, Romain Dumas, and Marc Lieb started from pole position after Jani broke the circuit's lap record in qualifying. The race was won by the sister Porsche of Nick Tandy and Le Mans rookies Earl Bamber and Nico Hülkenberg, followed a lap behind by a third Porsche shared by Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard. Audi's best car, driven by the title defenders Benoît Tréluyer, Marcel Fässler, and André Lotterer, finished third, a further lap behind the two Porsche vehicles. This was the seventeenth overall victory for Porsche, their first since 1998 and also the first gasoline-powered car to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall since 2005.
The LMP2 category was won by the KCMG Oreca-Nissan driven by Richard Bradley, Matthew Howson, and Nicolas Lapierre. The trio led all but nine laps of the race but only held a 48-second lead over the Jota Sport Gibson-Nissan at the race's end. Corvette Racing won their first class victory since 2011 despite one of their two cars being withdrawn after an accident in qualifying. Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner, and Jordan Taylor held a five-lap margin in LMGTE Pro over the AF Corse Ferrari in second, after breaking away from the rest of the field in the second half of the race. The LMGTE Am class was led for most of the time by the No. 98 Aston Martin until driver Paul Dalla Lana crashed in the Ford Chicane in the final hour of the race, handing the victory to the SMP Racing Ferrari of Viktor Shaytar, Aleksey Basov, and Andrea Bertolini.
The result meant Lotterer, Tréluyer and Fässler remained the leaders of the Drivers' Championship on 80 points, 20 ahead of Tandy, and a further two in front of his co-drivers Bamber and Hülkenberg. Dumas, Jani and Lieb dropped from second to fourth and Bernhard, Hartley and Webber stood in fifth place. Porsche became the new leaders of the Manufacturers' Championship with 140 points; Audi were 16 points behind their nearest rivals with Toyota 69 points adrift in third with five races left in the season.
Schedule and pre-championship standings[edit]
The 2015 Le Mans schedule was confirmed in an FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Munich on 26 June 2014.[1] It was the 83rd running of the event,[1] and the third of eight scheduled rounds of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship.[2] Before the race Audi Sport Team Joest drivers André Lotterer, Benoît Tréluyer and Marcel Fässler led the Drivers' Championship with 50 points, 14 ahead of their nearest rivals Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb and a further 14 in front of third-placed Mike Conway, Stéphane Sarrazin and Alexander Wurz. Anthony Davidson and Sébastien Buemi were fourth on 19 points, and Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber stood in fifth place with 17 points.[3] Audi were leading the Manufacturers' Championship with 70 points, 17 ahead of their rival Porsche in second; the third-place manufacturer Toyota had scored 47 points.[3] Audi had so far dominated the season by winning the first two races of the campaign. Dumas, Jani and Lieb had twice finished in second while Davidson and Buemi along with Bernhard, Hartley and Webber had achieved third-place results.[3]
Entries[edit]
Automatic invitations[edit]
Automatic entry invitations were earned by teams that won their class in the previous running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, or won championships in other Le Mans-based series such as the IMSA SportsCar Championship (IMSA), the European Le Mans Series (ELMS), and the Asian Le Mans Series (ALMS). Some championship runners-up were also granted automatic invitations in certain series. All current FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) full-season entries also automatically earned invitations. As invitations were granted to teams, they were allowed to change their cars from the previous year to the next, but not allowed to change their category. In the ELMS, the "Le Mans" Grand Touring Endurance (LMGTE) class champion and runner-up were allowed to choose between the Pro and Am categories, while the GTC class champion was limited solely to an Am entry. The ALMS GTC competitors were also limited to the LMGTE Am class.[8]
The ACO announced its initial list of automatic entries on 15 December 2014.[8]
Testing and practice[edit]
A pre-Le Mans testing day was held at the circuit on 31 May,[11] involving all 56 entries as well as the KCMG Oreca-Nissan, Ibañez Oreca-Nissan, Gulf Racing Porsche, and Formula Racing Ferrari reserve entries. Two LMP3 class Ginetta vehicles and two additional AF Corse Ferrari cars also participated. The two four-hour sessions were held under mixed weather conditions as rain swept through the area several times. Neel Jani set the fastest time in the early session with a three minutes and 21.945 seconds for the No. 18 Porsche,[12] but Hartley improved to a three minutes and 21.061 seconds in the sister No. 17 Porsche.[13] Audi's best time was a three minutes and 22.307 seconds for Marco Bonanomi in the No. 9 car, while Toyota could only muster a three minutes and 25.321 seconds lap.[12] Laurens Vanthoor was the fastest LMP2 driver in the No. 34 OAK Ligier-Honda. Darren Turner's No. 97 Aston Martin was quickest in LMGTE Pro while Pedro Lamy helped Aston Martin also lead in LMGTE Am.[13] The session served as the first appearance for the trio of Nissan GT-R LM Nismo amongst its World Endurance Championship competitors, although the cars were not on pace with the LMP1 field.[13] After the test several prototype teams, including all Audi, Porsche, Toyota and Nissan cars participated in an unofficial test on the shorter Bugatti Circuit the following day to ensure car components were working efficiently before the race.[14]
Four hours of practice were held for the field on Wednesday afternoon, but again suffered from variable wet-weather throughout. The No. 17 Porsche once again led the session although Webber was the fastest driver to set the three minutes and 21.362 seconds lap time. Audi closed to within half a second with Loïc Duval's three minutes and 21.950 seconds lap.[15] The LMP2 category had only a single car manage a lap under three minutes and 40 seconds when Richard Bradley set a three minutes and 39.897 seconds lap, a full second ahead of the No. 34 OAK Ligier-Honda. The KCMG car had earlier caused the session to be red flagged when the car came to a stop at the first Mulsanne Straight chicane. The Murphy Prototypes Oreca-Nissan later caused a second stoppage when Mark Patterson spun in the Porsche Curves entry and heavily impacted the safety barrier. Patterson was unhurt. The LMGTE Pro category was again led by Aston Martin, Richie Stanaway's No. 99 car setting a three minutes and 55.895 seconds lap, followed by the No. 64 Corvette and the No. 97 Aston Martin. Mathias Lauda kept the No. 98 Aston Martin ahead in LMGTE Am, nearly two seconds ahead of the two Proton Porsche cars.[16]
Warm-up[edit]
The cars took to the circuit on Saturday morning for a 45-minute warm-up session in dry and clear weather. The No. 9 Audi driven by Filipe Albuquerque set the fastest time with a lap of three minutes and 19.423 seconds. The sister Audi cars of Jarvis and Fässler were second and third overall. Dumas was fourth-fastest. His teammate Bernhard was fifth quickest and had the fastest lap before Albuquerque set his time. The fastest LMP2 lap was set by Mitch Evans with a time of three minutes and 39.559 seconds. Stefan Mücke, driving the No. 97 Aston Martin, was the quickest driver in the LMGTE Pro category with the No. 88 Proton Porsche driven by Klaus Bachler the fastest of the LMGTE Am drivers. Gianluca Roda damaged the front-right corner of his No. 50 Larbre Compétition Corvette in a heavy crash at the Porsche Curves.[31]
Post-race[edit]
The top three finishers in all four categories appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and in a later press conference. Hülkenberg revealed that Porsche's objective was to have one car featured on the podium and was astonished over the team's first and second-place results. He said that he was proud and delighted at his team's achievement: "We had a flawless race with a great pace and we didn't make any mistake. The last lap was a bit weird because it was drizzling and people got nervous in the garage. After the finish line, it is amazing to see thousands and thousands of people cheering up."[68] Bamber stated that the win was "beyond my dreams" and hoped to return to the event in future years with Porsche.[68] Tandy described his success as "surreal":[69] "I can't think of two better people to share the car with. We haven't put a wheel wrong all race and we've just won the biggest race in the world."[72]
Webber did not believe that his one-minute stop and go penalty prevented him from winning the event, saying he was not fast enough but praised the race victors on their success.[68] Hartley stated it felt special to stand on the Le Mans podium and felt it would be a day that would be looked back in New Zealand motor racing history.[73] Bernhard said that while the overall victory was his dream, he was proud of the Porsche team, and felt it was motor racing at the highest quality.[73] Hülkenberg's success attracted praise from fellow Formula One drivers. During the Thursday pre-race press conference at the Austrian Grand Prix held one week later, Red Bull Racing driver Daniel Ricciardo thought Hülkenberg's victory made it more possible for Formula One participants to compete in other forms of motor racing and believed that they would receive praise for taking part in such events.[74] Four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel said that the driver made the victory "look easy" and it was a positive in improving the reputation of Formula One drivers.[75]
The result meant Lotterer, Tréluyer and Fässler remained the leaders of the Drivers' Championship with 80 points, 20 ahead of second-placed Tandy, who in turn, was a further two in front of his co-drivers Bamber and Hülkenberg in third. Dumas, Jani and Lieb's performance saw them fall from second to fourth place and Bernhard, Hartley and Webber's second-place result allowed them to move into fifth on 53 points.[3] Porsche were the new leaders in the Manufacturers' Championship with 140 points; Audi were 16 points behind their nearest rivals and Toyota maintained third place on 71 points with five races left in the season.[3]