A good showing by the Aussies and Kiwis, with Hartley taking outright victory for Toyota and Briscoe finishing third for Glickenhaus. James Allen's car won the Pro-Am subclass of LMP2. SVG's Ferrari finished fifth in GTE Pro but was way off the pace, while Nick Cassidy was sixth in GTE Am while Matt Campbell's car was 16th after various issues during the race.
Another easy win for Toyota in the outright stakes. Any chance of a good race between the two was gone when the #7 needed a reset about two-thirds of the way through. Glickenhaus were solid - the #708 almost had the fastest lap of the race - but couldn't consistently maintain the pace of the Toyotas, finishing five laps down with the #709. Alpine had a shocker, finishing 23rd outright after clutch issues early and a crash later in the race. The BOP was a bit of a joke; the Alpine had 16hp taken away after qualifying despite being half a second slower than the Toyotas, and as a result they were struggling to make their way through the LMP2 field in the race. Their fastest race lap was three seconds off the pace.
LMP2 was dominated by Jota. The #38 took the lead in the first hour IIRC and held it to the finish, winning the class by over two minutes. Prema finished second in their Le Mans debut with the other Jota car in third. Penske finished fifth in what was a preparation run of sorts before combining with Porsche for next year. A story I followed during the race was the progress of United Autosports #22; they were pushed into the gravel at turn one on lap one, losing multiple laps, and recovered to finish 10th out of 27 in class.
Ferrari were dudded by BOP in the GTE classes. It was shaping up to be a Porsche-Corvette battle for GTE Pro before three of their four cars had issues; both Corvettes retired from the race, one with brake issues and one taken out by an LMP2, while the leading Porsche had a tyre delamination on the run out of Mulsanne corner. The remaining Porsche took the Pro win ahead of the two AF Corse Ferraris. The #51 Ferrari did hold a small lead with a few hours to go but had a slow puncture, though I don't think it had the pace to hold off the Porsche anyway. SVG's crew had a lonely run to fifth in class.
GTE Am was a battle between Aston Martin and Porsche, with the #33 Aston gaining a crucial advantage by being one queue in front when the actual safety cars came out for the only time. The all-female Iron Dames team did well, finishing 7th in class.
thanks for that Kytabu. I must admit it is the first time that I have missed the race for a few years now, had family things to attend to.
It will be interesting to see the Hypercar class moving forward as from what I understand from next year Pergot is joining, along with Cadillac, BMW, Ferrari plus a few others that are supposed to be coming however, I am not sure if they are still coming or if they have shelved the program.
There will also be the BOP being enforced which makes no sense to me.
It is also the last year of the GTLM Pro class this year with GT3 coming in next year I think so it will be interesting to see who comes in if anyone.
Yep, Peugeot will be at Monza for the next round of WEC. I think Ferrari (Hypercar), Cadillac and Porsche-Penske (LMDh) will all be there next year and Lamborghini (LMDh) the year after. BMW and Acura are only doing LMDh in the US as far as I know.
I'm also afraid of what BOP will do to the top class as we have seen so often in GTE that one manufacturer seems to get completely shafted.
Alpine looks like it could be pulling its team for a few years, looking to downgrade to LMP2 while they work on getting a car done.
the Bykoles/Vanwall entry is completely unknown if it will happen or not, AUDI appear to have shelved their plan, Aston pulled out to go into F1 instead. Also there appears to be a few issues with the Glickenhaus team who may well be running out of money or has issues with the company not being willing to continue to fund it.
The BOP is always a mess frankly. It is a measure that is supposed to create balance between the teams however, it rarely if ever works simple because all cars are built differently so it ends up hobbling some teams and favoring others. I have to wonder if the ASO will look to favor those that run the WEC/ those as Hypercar over those that are LMDH entries or if they will treat them as separate categories?