Le Mans 24h: #7 Toyota takes historic win with new Hypercar

Conway started the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID's from the front at a wet start after Kobayashi had put the car on pole.

The Briton got away cleanly, while the #8 sister car of Sebastien Buemi was tagged by the #708 Glickenhaus 007 LMH of Oliver Pla.

In the #36 Alpine A480-Gibson, a grandfathered LMP1 car that ran last year as the Rebellion R-13, Nicolas Lapierre briefly took second but then lost it at Indianapolis, gifting Conway's Toyota a handsome early lead.

While the #8 car carved its way back up the field, the leading #7 Toyota enjoyed a trouble-free run and survived a chaotic night, which was marred by several accidents, particularly in LMP2.

Toyota restored a commanding 1-2 lead before one-third distance, with the #8 car getting back in contention for the win.

But problems with its fuel pickup began hampering the #8 car, restricting it to shorter stint lengths, while Buemi also lost a minute trying to reset the car on the side of the road.

The leading #7 car also suffered similar fuel issues, but Toyota managed to find a workaround and get both cars to the finish in a nervy final four hours.

An emotional Kobayashi took the chequered flag for the #7 crew, which finally found redemption after years of near misses at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

In 2017, Kobayashi and Conway - then partnered by Stephane Sarrazin - held a comfortable lead when they famously suffered a burnt-out clutch on pitlane, after Kobayashi mistook a thumbs up from LMP2 driver Vincent Capillaire for a marshal's go-signal.

When Toyota finally started winning in 2018, the first of now four consecutive Le Mans wins, it was the #8 car that took a hattrick of wins while Kobayashi, Conway and Lopez were left wondering if it was ever going to be their day.

That day, on the debut of the ACO's new Hypercar regulations, has now come, Kobayashi getting the honour to take the car to the chequered flag.

Race winners #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 - Hybrid Hypercar, Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria Lopez, second place #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 - Hybrid Hypercar, Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Brendon Hartley

Photo by: ACO

Buemi, Nakajima and Hartley completed another Toyota 1-2, Nakajima being held in the pits to orchestrate a photo finish, with Nakajima in the #8 Toyota finishing two laps down.

Lapierre crossed the line four laps behind the winners to give Alpine a first overall podium finish at Circuit de la Sarthe alongside Andre Negrao and Matthieu Vaxiviere, the first French team to finish on the overall podium since Peugeot in 2011.

After early drama, American boutique manufacturer Glickenhaus Racing had a low-key Le Mans debut in which it never threatened its fellow Hypercar rivals, but both of its cars made it to the finish in fourth and fifth, the #708 and #709 cars respectively four and seven laps behind.

In LMP2 the Belgian WRT outfit looked set to take a shock 1-2 win on its Le Mans debut. The team, led by Vincent Vosse expanded to WEC's LMP2 class after a decade of success in GT3 racing, entering a pair of ORECA-Gibson 07s.

On Sunday morning WRT emerged from the darkness in a comfortable 1-2 lead after an eventful night for many of its competitors.

At that time the #31 car of Robin Frijns, Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg enjoyed a 45s lead over the #41 sister car of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Louis Deletraz, but in the afternoon the #41 crew closed the gap and took over the lead with less than two hours to go.

But on the final lap of the race the Yifei Ye sensationally ground to a halt in the leading #41 car, reportedly suffering a complete loss of power.

That handed the win to Frijns, Milesi and Habsburg, but only after holding off JOTA's resurgent #28 car of Stoffel Vandoorne, Tom Blomqvist and Sean Gelael who came back to finish just 0.7s behind at the finish.

#31 Team WRT Oreca 07 - Gibson LMP2, Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg, Charles Milesi

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

The #65 Panis Racing ORECA of Will Stevens, Julien Canal and James Allen ended up on the podium ahead of the #23 United Autosports car. It had completed fewer laps than the stricken #41 machine, but because the WRT car didn't cross the finish line it will be classified as a DNF.

While WRT fully earned its maiden win despite its late scare, it also benefitted from a plethora of issues and incidents that befell its competitors.

Some of the pre-race favourites already faltered on Saturday afternoon, Anthony Davidson going off at Turn 1 from the lead in the #38 JOTA after team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa had been the star of the opening hours.

G-Drive Racing's challenge fell apart after Franco Colapinto got caught out by a slow zone on the way to Porsche Curves, clattering his #26 Aurus-badged car into the #1 Richard Mille entry of Sophia Floersch. While the car eventually returned, its #25 sister car dropped out after a hard crash by Rui Andrade at the Dunlop chicane.

United Autosports' race also started unravelling on Saturday night when aboard the #32 car Manuel Maldonado lost control in the first corner and rammed team-mate Paul di Resta in the #23 entry.

United's third #22 car ran well up front until it disappeared into the garage for an alternator issue, just past the halfway mark.

Among the other contenders, IDEC Sport's race was stunted early on when Patrick Pilet got stuck the gravel in the #48 ORECA.

JOTA's #28 Vandoorne-Blomqvist-Gelael trio also had the potential to ruin WRT's day, leading spells of the evening hours.

But a 90-second stop and hold penalty and a drivethrough penalty, respectively for jumping the safety car queue and crossing the white line on pit entry, dropped that car off the lead lap in fifth before it recovered to take second.

Juan Pablo Montoya and his DragonSpeed crew took the Pro-Am honours, the former F1 ace and Indy 500 champion winning the sub-class alongside Ben Hanley and Henrik Hedman in the #21 ORECA.

On their debut as a father and son duo, Kevin and Jan Magnussen finished 17th in LMP2. A puncture sent Magnussen senior into the wall in the #49 High Class ORECA, which they shared with fellow Dane Anders Fjordbach.

 

#51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE Pro, Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Come Ledogar

Photo by: Ferrari

GTE Pro looked set to be dominated by the AF Corse Ferraris, but with great strategy and driving the #63 Corvette managed to stay in the mix as the conditions began to play to the debuting C8.R's strengths, Nicky Catsburg particularly enjoying the nighttime conditions during a fast triple stint.

A possible 1-2 win for AF Corse was thwarted by a left-rear suspension failure for the #52 car at night, which caused it to tumble down the order. On Sunday morning a delaminating puncture for Sam Bird cost the car even more ground.

That meant the race turned into a two-horse race between the #51 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo and the #63 Corvette C8.R.

In the warmer afternoon conditions, the #51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Come Ledogar gradually pulled away and took the entry's second win in three years, after winning in 2019 and finishing second last year.

It was the second GTE Pro win for Pier Guidi and Calado, who were also part of the winning crew in 2019, while Frenchman Ledogar took his first-ever Le Mans class win.

Catsburg, Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor took a solid second place in class 41 seconds behind.

Porsche endured another character-building Le Mans, both the #92 and #91 factory cars losing ground early on and lacking the outright race pace to do much about it.

In the #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19, which was rebuilt on Friday after a shunt in Hyperpole, Kevin Estre, Neel Jani and Michael Christensen beat their team-mates in the #91 car to a distant podium berth, one lap down on the winning Ferrari.

Initially it was the Proton-run #79 WeatherTech car which led the Weissach marque's charge in the hands of Laurens Vanthoor and Earl Bamber, but the car retired overnight after a crash by third driver Cooper MacNeil damaged the chassis.

The other privately entered Porsche, the #72 HubAuto entry which Dries Vanthoor sensationally drove to pole, also had a troubled run. At the start Maxime Martin collided with a LMP2 car, a time loss from which the car never recovered. A broken drivetrain, which made the younger Vanthoor sibling grind to a halt, sealed the car's fate.

The second #64 Corvette bore the brunt of the reliability issues in its class. First it had to replace a broken diffuser after Nick Tandy was stunningly tapped from behind by Calado as the field left the ceremonial grid, before the race had even started.

It then lost over an hour with a clutch issue during the night and then disappeared into the garage a third time in the morning with an alternator problem.

#83 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE Am of François Perrodo, Nicklas Nielsen, Alessio Rovera

Photo by: Eric Le Galliot

In GTE Am, the #83 AF Corse Ferrari proved the class of the field. It gained a healthy buffer after Felipe Fraga went off in the first chicane on Saturday night in what was then the class-leading #33 TF Sport Aston Martin.

Once in the lead, Nicklas Nielsen, Alessio Rovera and Francois Perrodo drove a controlled race to keep the Aston Martin over a minute behind at all times.

Fraga and TF Sport Aston team-mates Ben Keating and Dylan Pereira ultimately settled for second.

Trouble for the #54 AF Corse Ferrari gave the #80 Iron Lynx Ferrari of Matteo Cressoni, Rino Mastronardi and Callum Ilott a clear run to third in class.

2021 Le Mans 24 Hours results

Cla	#	Drivers		Car	Class	Laps	Time
1	7	Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez		Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	371
2	8	Sébastien Buemi Kazuki Nakajima Brendon Hartley		Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	369	2 laps
3	36	Andre Negrao Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere		Alpine A480	HYPERCAR	367	4 laps
4	708	Pipo Derani Franck Mailleux Olivier Pla		Glickenhaus 007 LMH	HYPERCAR	367	2'34.103
5	709	Ryan Briscoe Richard Westbrook Romain Dumas		Glickenhaus 007 LMH	HYPERCAR	364	6.095
6	31	Robin Frijns Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi		Oreca 07	LMP2	363	31.721
7	28	Sean Gelael Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist		Oreca 07	LMP2	363	0.727
8	65	Julien Canal Will Stevens James Allen		Oreca 07	LMP2	362	9 laps
9	23	Paul di Resta Alex Lynn Wayne Boyd		Oreca 07	LMP2	361	10 laps
10	34	Jakub Smiechowski Renger van der Zande Alex Brundle		Oreca 07	LMP2	360	11 laps
11	48	Paul Lafargue Paul-Loup Chatin Patrick Pilet		Oreca 07	LMP2	359	12 laps
12	26	Roman Rusinov Franco Colapinto Nyck de Vries		Aurus 01	LMP2	358	13 laps
13	38	Roberto Gonzalez Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson		Oreca 07	LMP2	358	47.211
14	30	Rene Binder Memo Rojas Tristan Gommendy		Oreca 07	LMP2	357	14 laps
15	21	Henrik Hedman Ben Hanley Juan Pablo Montoya		Oreca 07	LMP2	356	15 laps
16	29	Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert		Oreca 07	LMP2	356	29.252
17	70	Esteban Garcia Loic Duval Norman Nato		Oreca 07	LMP2	356	2'19.918
18	20	Dennis Andersen Ricky Taylor Marco Sorensen		Oreca 07	LMP2	353	18 laps
19	39	Vincent Capillaire Arnold Robin Maxime Robin		Oreca 07	LMP2	352	19 laps
20	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado Côme Ledogar		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	345	26 laps
21	63	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor Nick Catsburg		Chevrolet Corvette C8.R	LMGTE PRO	345	41.686
22	92	Kevin Estre Neel Jani Michael Christensen		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	344	27 laps
23	91	Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz Frédéric Makowiecki		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	343	28 laps
24	44	Miro Konopka Oliver Webb Matej Konopka		Oreca 07	LMP2	342	29 laps
25	83	François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	340	31 laps
26	33	Ben Keating Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga		Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	339	32 laps
27	80	Matteo Cressoni Rino Mastronardi Callum Ilott		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	338	33 laps
28	74	James Winslow John Corbett Tom Cloet		Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	338	2'07.162
29	49	Anders Fjordbach Jan Magnussen Kevin Magnussen		Oreca 07	LMP2	336	35 laps
30	60	Claudio Schiavoni Paolo Ruberti Raffaele Giammaria		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	335	36 laps
31	77	Christian Ried Jaxon Evans Matt Campbell		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	335	33.045
32	84	Takuma Aoki Nigel Bailly Matthieu Lahaye		Oreca 07	INNOVATIVE CAR	334	37 laps
33	777	Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Andrew Watson		Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	333	38 laps
34	18	Andrew Haryanto Alessio Picariello Marco Seefried		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	332	39 laps
35	95	John Hartshorne Ollie Hancock Ross Gunn		Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	332	26.571
36	85	Rahel Frey Sarah Bovy Michelle Gatting		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	332	2'19.723
37	52	Daniel Serra Miguel Molina Sam Bird		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	331	40 laps
38	69	Robert Renauer Ralf Bohn Rolf Ineichen		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	330	41 laps
39	54	Thomas Flohr Giancarlo Fisichella Francesco Castellacci		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	329	42 laps
40	22	Philip Hanson Fabio Scherer Filipe Albuquerque		Oreca 07	LMP2	328	43 laps
41	71	Brendan Iribe Ollie Millroy Ben Barnicoat		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	327	44 laps
42	88	Julien Andlauer Dominique Bastien Lance David Arnold		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	327	1'05.840
43	86	Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	322	49 laps
44	64	Tommy Milner Nick Tandy Alexander Sims		Chevrolet Corvette C8.R	LMGTE PRO	313	58 laps
45	41	Robert Kubica Louis Deletraz Ye Yifei		Oreca 07	LMP2	362	3'33.661
46	82	Ryan Cullen Oliver Jarvis Felipe Nasr		Oreca 07	LMP2	275	95 laps
47	388	Pierre Ehret Christian Hook Jeroen Bleekemolen		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	271	99 laps
48	24	Patrick Kelly Gabriel Aubry Simon Trummer		Oreca 07	LMP2	261	109 laps
49	72	Dries Vanthoor Alvaro Parente Maxime Martin		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	227	143 laps
50	79	Cooper MacNeil Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	139	231 laps
51	46	Dennis Olsen Anders Buchardt Robby Foley		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	138	232 laps
52	57	Takeshi Kimura Scott Andrews Mikkel Jensen		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	128	242 laps
53	66	Thomas Neubauer Rodrigo Sales Jody Fannin		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	117	253 laps
54	55	Duncan Cameron David Perel Matthew Griffin		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	109	261 laps
55	25	John Falb Roberto Merhi Rui Andrade		Aurus 01	LMP2	108	262 laps
56	47	Roberto Lacorte Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	90	280 laps
57	56	Egidio Perfetti Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	84	286 laps
58	32	Nico Jamin Jonathan Aberdein Manuel Maldonado		Oreca 07	LMP2	75	295 laps
59	1	Tatiana Calderon Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser		Oreca 07	LMP2	74	296 laps
60	99	Harry Tincknell Vutthikorn Inthrapuvasak Florian Latorre		Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	66	304 laps
61	98	Paul Dalla Lana Nicki Thiim Marcos Gomes		Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	45	325 laps
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