New Zealand continues to punch well above its weight in motorsport with drivers winning races around the world.
At Le Mans, Palmerston North driver Brendon Hartley led a significant portion of the most famous endurance race in the world, the 24 Hour of Le Mans. Though eventually overtaken by race favourites Ferrari, the Toyota of Hartley was a strong second at the flag. Third overall was another Kiwi and former Le Mans winner, Earl Bamber, while Indycar racer Scott Dixon was fourth.
After five consecutive Le Mans wins, world champions Toyota brought two cars to meet the challenge of a record 16-car Hypercar field featuring competitors from Cadillac, Ferrari, Peugeot and Porsche. A sell-out 325,000 crowd witnessed an exceptionally close contest featuring drama and excitement until the very end.
Last year’s winners Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa in the #8 GR010 Hybrid saw off all competitors bar one.
With two hours remaining the race could have gone to Toyota or Ferrari. Hartley handed over to Hirakawa but the latter had an off, losing three minutes.
After 24 relentless hours of racing, the #8 crossed the line in second place, 1:21.793secs behind the winning #51 Ferrari.
“I’m feeling a lot of emotions right now,” commented Hartley. “We gave it our all and we had nothing left. We didn’t have the outright performance, but we were still there, putting pressure on Ferrari all the way through.
“For a moment it was getting exciting at the end when the conditions came back to us a bit and we started to close the gap. Ryo was in the most difficult situation. He was told to go full risk and try to close the gap so there’s no blame. Right now, it feels like we came so close but were so far away. Big congratulations to Ferrari. They were quicker, and they didn’t make mistakes, so well done to them.”
Toyota Gazoo Racing retains the world championship lead with three rounds remaining.
Le Mans 24 Hours – Result
1. Ferrari AF Corse (Pier Guidi/Calado/Giovinazzi) 342 laps
2. Toyota Gazoo Racing (Buemi/Hartley/Hirakawa) +1min 21.793secs
3. Cadillac Racing (Bamber/Lynn/Westbrook) +1 laps
4. Cadillac Racing (Bourdais/Van der Zande/Dixon) +2 laps
5. Ferrari AF Corse (Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen) +5 laps
