Porsche have won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the third year in a row after a race of retirements that followed a night of drama with Toyota’s top two cars retiring and the number one Porsche also suffering a terminal problem while leading with four hours to go.
Porsche claimed a 19th victory Sunday in the 2017 24 Hour of Le Mans at the end of a topsy-turvy race that saw all five of the factory LMP1 cars ran into major reliability issues.
The No. 2 Porsche 919 Hybrid shared by Timo Bernhard, Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley came from behind to win a race that Porsche had led by a huge 13 laps at one point. Andre Lotterer, Nick Tandy and Neel Jani looked to be on course for victory when their 919 lost oil pressure and stopped on the circuit in the closing stages.
The winning car was the first of the factory P1s to hit problems. A change of the motor generator unit at the front cost it more than 65 minutes in the pits before the event was five hours old. But the real drama was when two of the three Toyota TS050 Hybrids retired, while the third lost nearly two hours in the pits, allowing the Porsche team to take an unlikely win.
Le Mans 24 Hour Race final standings on Sunday:
- Bamber-Bernhard-Hartley (NZL-GER-NZL/Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1) 367 laps
- Jarvis-Laurent-Tung (GBR-FRA-CHN/Oreca-Gibson LMP2) at 1 lap (LMP2 class)
- Piquet Jr-Beche-Hansson (BRA-SUI-DEN/Oreca-Gibson) 3 laps
- Gommendy-Brundle-Cheng (FRA-GBR-CHN/Oreca-Gibson) 4 laps
- Panciatici-Ragues-Negrao (FRA-FRA-BRA/Alpine-Gibson) 5 laps
- Owen-De Sadeleer-Albuquerque (USA-SUI-POR/Ligier-Gibson) 5 laps
- Allen-Matelli-Bradley (AUS-FRA-GBR/Oreca-Gibson) 6 laps
- Vergne-Graves-Hirschi (FRA-THA-SUI/Oreca-Gibson) 7 laps
- Buemi-Davidson-Nakajima (SUI-GBR-JPN/Toyota TS050 Hybrid) 9 laps
- Sernagiotto-Lacorte-Belicchi (ITA/Dallara-Gibson) 14 laps
