-----Twenty-four hours ago, if you had bet Audi would have walked away with the sweep of the podium, you would have not only gone against popular belief, but also gone against the odds. Team Peugeot Total came in as race favorites. The four French Lions paced practice, qualified 1-2-3-4, yet not a single 908 HDi-FAP managed to finish the 78th Le Mans 24 Hours. One by one, the Peugeots fell by the wayside. First it was the pole-sitting No. 3 machine of Pedro Lamy, which retired with suspension failure in the second hour. Then came a fiery exit for Franck Montagny at dawn, which handed the lead to the No. 9 Audi R15 plus.
Two more engine failures, both for defending winner Alexander Wurz with two hours to go and another blow-up for the semi-works Team ORECA machine of Loic Duval, put the final nail in the coffin for the French manufacturer.
Audi picked up the pieces with its trio of updated R15 plus machines in the luckiest of circumstances to take the surprise victory in the world’s toughest endurance race.
Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller scored Audi’s third-ever 1-2-3 finish at Le Mans, setting a new distance record of 3,362.19 miles along the way in the relatively trouble-free run for the German factory squad.
"To come here and drive for a factory team like Audi with such a long history of victories - now nine in the last 11 years - is something special to be here as a driver," Bernhard said. "I felt very strong team spirit from the beginning of the weekend. We shared every bit of information and improved the car. It was a combined team effort and we put it all together. All three cars ran perfectly."
The win also marks Rockenfeller's second major endurance victory of 2010, having won the Rolex 24 in January. "I've been on the podium once when I won the GT class, but my dream was always to be here and drive for the overall victory," Rockenfeller said. "When I came to Audi, everyone knows the first year was the worst race of my life. It was a bad start, but the team gave me the trust to come back. I think we can all be proud, all nine drivers. We all didn't believe that we could have all been on the podium in the end. It's a great team effort."
The No. 8 entry of Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer finished one lap behind in second. Surprisingly, Audi's strongest entry, the No. 7 machine of Allan McNish, Dindo Capello and Tom Kristensen came home third after an early-race incident with the No. 79 BMW Art Car of Andy Priaulx that put the Audi in the gravel trap at the Porsche Curves. It was the highest-placed Audi at the time.
Audi crushed its competition, finishing a whopping 28 laps ahead of the fourth-placed Team ORECA Matmut Oreca 01 AIM of Andy Meyrick, Didier Andre and Soheil Ayari, the best of the gasoline-powered prototypes. The Hughues de Chaunac-led squad overcame a late-race starter motor issue to be one of only five finishers in LMP1, as many prototypes were in self-destruct mode in the closing hours.
In addition to the Peugeots, Sam Hancock's No. 009 Lola-Aston Martin blew up with less than an hour to go, while the sister No. 007 AMR entry limped home in sixth overall, behind the LMP2 class-winner. It had appeared to be a class nobody wanted to finish, unless you driving a factory Audi.
After topping the time sheets all week, Strakka Racing turned its pole position into the LMP2 class victory in a dominant performance. Danny Watts, Jonny Kane and Nick Leventis drove their Honda Performance Development ARX-01c to a six-lap win over the second-placed No. 35 OAK Racing Pescarolo Judd in a race that saw 10 of the 12 starters finish.
In years past, the second-tier prototype category was a last-man standing affair, but that wasn’t the case this time around. For Strakka, which scored HPD’s debut Le Mans victory, their ex-Fernandez Racing machine ran trouble-free for 24 hours, also taking top honors in the Michelin Green X Challenge.
"[Highcroft] pushed us to the three-quarter distance and we had to be on our toes all the time," Watts said. "The strategy was perfect. We were able to triple-stint and they weren't, so that gave us a little bit of time. Above all, stay out of trouble. They had a very good driver lineup. We had to stay sharp and consistent and not make any mistakes, and that's exactly what we did."
Two HPD-engined cars finished on the podium, as the No. 25 RML Lola B08/80 HPD of Tommy Erdos, Mike Newton and Andy Wallace came home third, a further three laps behind the winning Strakka machine. American favorites Highcroft Racing started off strong, running solidly in second through the night, despite two debris-inflicted tire punctures. Marco Werner took the Malaria No More-backed HPD ARX-01c into the lead at the six-hour mark, but water pressure problems parked Werner and co-drivers David Brabham and Marino Franchitti for the majority of the final five hours. The car, however, did venture back out to take the checkered flag.
Nearly ten years after its debut, the Saleen S7-R went out with a bang, taking the class win in GT1. In the category’s final hurrah at Le Mans, the Larbre Competition machine of Gabriel Gardel, Roland Berville and Julien Canal scored top honors, finishing 13th overall.
The French endurance specialists took the lead following an overnight accident by the No. 60 Matech Competition Ford GT, which had dominated the race up to that point. Matech’s sister machine suffered a fiery exit in the hands of Natacha Gachnang, while the other favorite, the Marc VDS Ford, crashed out in the second hour.
It left the Saleen, which had traditionally been plagued with reliability issues, to take its first Le Mans class victory, in what's the car’s swansong year with the elimination of the category at the end of the year.
"This is a job that started a long time ago," Gardel explained. "About five or six months ago, Jack Leconte decided to put us together. The team did a really good job because they didn't stop working on the car for the past three months. They've been trying to pay attention to every small detail on the car, and this is the thing that probably made the difference for us. We never had a real problem on the car. We kept going. I believe that the direction from Jack and everyone did a good job to land this victory altogether." The No. 72 Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette came home second, with the pole-sitting No. 52 Young Driver AMR Aston Martin rounding out the podium, and the only finishers out of the seven starters.
Like GT1, the the battle for GT2 honors came down to a race of attrition. The No. 77 Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of Marc Lieb, Richard Lietz and Wolf Henzler scored top honors as they watched their rivals fall by the wayside. The German factory-supported squad took over the lead with six and a half hours remaining when the No. 64 Corvette Racing C6.R, which had led much of the night, retired with an apparent engine failure in the 18th hour.
The Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta and Emmanuel Collard-driven Corvette enjoyed an intense early-race battle with the No. 82 Risi Competizione Ferrari, in pursuit of its third consecutive Le Mans class victory. However, the Houston-based squad dropped out with gear selection issues in the seventh hour, bringing an end to the its six-race win streak in the endurance classics.
Prior to its suspected engine failure, the Corvette had lost over 40 minutes undergoing repairs from an accident allegedly caused by the No. 1 Peugeot of Anthony Davidson, who made an aggressive pass in the Porsche Curves. The heavy impact, which tore up the car’s rear-end, dropped the No. 64 car to fifth and out of contention for the class win. It gave clear sailing for Felbermayr-Proton to pick up the victory in what was a trouble-free race for the defending Le Mans Series champions.
"After two hours, we thought it would be very tough to beat the Ferrari and Corvettes today," Henzler said. "We couldn't go the speed, but we pushed from the beginning and treated it like a sprint race. The only thing we could have done was run our own race and stay out of trouble. Finally we had a car which was very reliable with absolutely no problems. We saw what happened to the other cars, and that's how we won the race."
Hankook Team Farnbacher benefited from a series of retirements and consistent stints put in by Dominik Farnbacher, Allan Simonsen and Leh Keen to finish second, two laps behind the No. 77 machine. GRAND-AM regular Keen was the only American driver to score a podium finish in any class.
It marked the second consecutive runner-up finish for the German Ferrari squad in 24-hour classics, after finishing second overall in last month’s Nurburgring 24 Hours. The No. 97 BMS Scuderia Italia Porsche of Timo Scheider, Richard Westbrook and Marco Holzer completed the podium in third, a further nine laps behind. The Italian squad nursed the car home on five cylinders, without a clutch and with damaged suspension to score their third consecutive podium finish at Le Mans.