After a dominant race from Peugeot during the first part of the 2010 Le Mans 24 Hours, Audi inherited the lead and an unexpected 1-2-3 after the French cars all suffered technical issues.
Saturday evening, Peugeot was running confident in front, although the #3 car, which started from pole position, had to retire in the early moments of the race with a suspension broken. But the #2 was leading ahead of the sister car from the ORECA team, with the Audi far behind. But the ORECA 908 dropped down in the order after a long stop in the pits during the night. And the dream became nightmare for Peugeot at 7:00 am, when Franck Montagny had to stop with an engine broken. The Audi were not as fast as the Peugeot, but they were able to stay out of trouble, and moved up to 1-2-3, with 8 hours remaining. Peugeot’s trouble went even worse when the ORECA car, which was running 4th, was forced to stop for good with another engine failure. The only Peugeot remaining, the #1 car, pushed hard to come back to the Audi trio, but could not do better than a fourth position at the finish. Great LMP2 success for the Strakka HPD. The british team was in fight with the other HPD of Highcroft Racing. But the American car lost a lot of time after technical issues, and Strakka claimed a merited class win, with a great 5th position overall. Big disapointment for the Ford GT Matech in GT1. The car driven by Grosjean-Mutsch-Hirschi seemed to be unbeatable in front, until a LMP2 Pescarolo hit the car around midnight. The Ford was able to be back on the track, but was stopped few hours later with an engine broken. Finally, the Larbre Competition Saleen inherits the victory. Only three cars were able to reach the finish line (from eight at the start). Porsche claimed a surprise win in GT2. Risi Competizione’s Ferrari F430 and the #63 Corvette had a great fight in the beginning of the race, until the Italian car had mechanical issues, and the Corvette was hit by the Peugeot 908 driven by Davidson on Sunday morning, before an engine trouble stopped the American car. Team Felbemayr Proton moved up to the lead to clinch victory. Only half of the field reached the finish in those 78th Le Mans 24 Hours. Classement final des 24 Heures du Mans 2010: 1 - Rockenfeller-Bernhard-Dumas (Audi R15) - Audi - 397 laps (1st LMP1) 2 - Lotterer-Fassler-Treluyer (Audi R15) - Audi + 1 lap 3 - Kristensen-McNish-Capello (Audi R15) - Audi + 3 laps 4 - Ayari-Andre-Meyrick (Oreca-AIM) - Oreca + 28 laps 5 - Leventis-Watts-Kane (HPD ARX-01C) - Strakka + 30 laps (1st LMP2) 6 - Primat-Mucke-Fernandez (Lola Aston Martin) - Aston Martin + 32 laps 7 - Lahaye-Moreau-Charouz (Pescarolo-Judd) - OAK + 36 laps 8 - Newton-Erdos-Wallace (Lola-HPD) - RML + 39 laps 9 - Nicolet-Hein-Yvon (Pescarolo-Judd) - OAK + 56 laps 10 - Ojjeh-Greaves-Chalandon (Ginetta-Zytek) - Bruichladdich + 56 laps 11 - Lieb-Lietz-Henzler (Porsche 997) - Felbermayr + 59 laps (1st GT2) (…) 13 - Berville-Canal-Gardel (Saleen S7R) - Larbre Competition + 66 laps (1st GT1) Etc. Recent Articles
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