PORSCHE MAKES IT THREE IN A ROW AT LE MANS
THE Porsche 919 Hybrid of Earl Bamber, Timo Bernard and Brendon Hartley took the top podium spot in LMP1 and overall honors at last weekend’s staging of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The win is the third-straight for Porsche, and brings the car maker’s overall victory count at the legendary endurance race to 19.
Porsche’s triumph was anything but easy. The 919 Hybrid that eventually won the race — one of two that competed — broke down only five-and-a-half hours into the race. By the time its front axle drive was repaired, the car rejoined the race 18 laps behind, sitting at 56th position.
“I was driving at the time when I heard it go ‘ bang,’ and I thought it was our race done,” Mr. Bamber said.
“I brought it back to the pits and the guys looked into it, and we were back out in under an hour. From there it was a matter of fighting back into the top five at first, then that became a podium and then a podium became a win,” he added.
It took the team nearly 16 hours to get back into the same lap as the leading car — an OrecaGibson competing in the LMP2 class, driven by Ho-Pin Tung for the team of popular Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan. With less than an hour before the race’s finish, the 919 Hybrid, again with Mr. Bamber behind the wheel, overtook the Oreca- Gibson to claim the checkered flag.
He and Mr. Bernhard scored their second Le Mans overall win. It was Mr. Hartley’s first.
The other 919 Hybrid, driven by Neel Jani, Andre Lotterer and Nick Tandy, retired three hours before the end of the race, and while enjoying a massive 13-lap lead.
Porsche first won Le Mans in 1970, chalking up 15 more wins until 1998 when it stopped competing in the top class. In 2011, the car maker returned to the premier category for prototypes, citing that “new efficiency regulations” offer a platform for the research and development of technologies it could use for future road cars. — With a report from AFP