Le Mans Post-Race Notebook

Photo: Focus Pack Media/WEC

***Ferrari claimed its tenth overall 24 Hours of Le Mans victory and the first since 1965, when the North American Racing Team of Maston Gregory, Jochen Rindt and Ed Hugus took a Ferrari 250 LM to top honors.

***The winning No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi covered 342 laps or 2,895.65 miles, signifying the shortest winning distance in 22 years. Audi Sport Team Joest drivers Tom Kristensen, Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro completed 2,713.65 miles in 2001, when the circuit had a different configuration.

***A total of 40 of the 62 starters were classified, marking the lowest figure since 2012.

***It came amid changing weather conditions and a total of three safety car periods, including one that lasted for more than an hour due to rain on portions of Circuit de la Sarthe.

***Chip Ganassi Racing’s Richard Westbrook, who finished third in the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R, told Sportscar365 that the second bout of rain during the night was “horrendous” and suggested that a safety car should have been deployed in that instance.

***Westbrook said: “I was shocked that you’d see a little ding in the armco and they go safety car but then you’re going 280 km/h and you can’t see a thing. It was dangerous, it really was. The wet tire, it aquaplanes a lot.”

***The No. 5 Penske Porsche 963, which initially crossed the line in ninth overall, was deducted four laps in a post-race stewards’ decision due to the car completing the final lap in 9 minutes and 57 seconds, well over the 6 minute maximum. It dropped the Dane Cameron, Michael Christensen and Fred Makowiecki-driven car to 16th overall in the results, still as the highest-placed Porsche.

***It came after a mechanical drive issue for the car in the final hour. Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle told Sportscar365: “There was only a couple of minutes to go so we did whatever we could do to bring the car back on track and send him out. That’s what it was.”

***Click Here for the revised provisional results. The final results have yet to be issued at the time of publishing this article.

***Porsche’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship-crewed No. 75 entry of Mathieu Jaminet, Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy was the first retirement by a Hypercar in the three-year history of the class. The car dropped out in the eighth hour with fuel pressure issues. All five Hypercars class entries completed the 2021 and 2022 editions of the race.

***A total of €549,750 ($591,250 USD) was raised during in Porsche’s ‘Racing for Charity’ campaign in the race for the 733 laps turned by the three factory LMDh cars. The total amount will be handed over to the three non-profit organizations: Kinderherzen Retten e.V., Interplast Germany e.V. and the Ferry Porsche Foundation in the coming weeks.

***The No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid, which retired after an accident one hour later, marked Toyota’s first retirement at Le Mans since 2017 when both of its TS050 Hybrids failed to get to the finish, ironically including the much-publicized ‘fake marshal’ incident that led to Kobayashi retiring his car.

***Ferrari’s head of endurance race cars Ferdinando Cannizzo said that the small stone that affected the No. 50 car’s run was not found afterwards. “We couldn’t believe we lost all that water from just a small hole,” he said.

***Toyota Gazoo Racing’s WEC technical director Pascal Vasselon declared that the 37 kg weight increase for the Toyota GR010 Hybrid prior to Le Mans was worth more than the eventual winning margin. “The BoP effect was at least 2 minutes 30 [seconds],” he said.

***The race organizers requested Hertz Team JOTA to change the accident data recorder on its Porsche after Yifei Ye’s crash while leading in the fourth hour. “From that crash, the marshaling system was flashing,” said Ye’s co-driver Will Stevens. “So we had to box and change all of the electronics, which takes a while.”

***The first safety car enabled Hertz Team JOTA to rise from near the back of the overall field to the rear of Hypercar, courtesy of the new ‘drop back’ procedure that shuffles the cars into class order. However, Stevens felt the No. 38 Porsche shouldn’t have relied on the fortune of a safety car.

***The British driver told Sportscar365: “At the start of the race, I think we should have started behind the Hypercars. We’ve got a new safety car rule, and they want to bunch classes up, so surely you should start the race like that. But the safety car came anyway, and from there we worked our way forward.”

***Former NFL superstar Tom Brady was spotted on the grid ahead of JOTA’s first Le Mans in the Hypercar category. Brady’s self-titled apparel company is a partner of the team.

***Inter Europol Competition overcame radio issues in the final hour of the race, with the team being unable to communicate with Fabio Scherer. “I think they were more nervous than me because I knew more or less what the plan was,” Scherer told Sportscar365. “For sure it would be better to know the gaps a bit where all the cars are. But sometimes it’s just go with what you have and see where you are at.”

***The team adopted creative measures to try and communicate with the No. 34 Oreca 07 Gibson, including fashioning makeshift signs and co-driver Albert Costa hanging over the pit wall and gesturing to Scherer. The team ended up receiving a reprimand for using a colored background on a signaling board, which was labeled as a “minor violation” of the 24 Hours of Le Mans supplementary regulations.

***It ended up being the only penalty the Polish-flagged squad received following its earlier drive through for safety car infringement, although there was confusion over an additional penalty for a pit lane fueling error. The team initially received a five-second penalty for fueling before the engine was off in the 20th hour. The decision was subsequently revoked following “further technical investigation” by stewards.

***Inter Europol became the fourth different LMP2 winner in as many years at Le Mans, following JOTA (2022), Team WRT (2021) and United Autosports (2020). Alpine was the last team to secure consecutive class wins in 2018 and 2019 and finished fourth and ninth in class upon its return to the category.

***Team WRT missed out on a double podium finish when its No. 31 car suffered a suspension failure with 15 minutes to go, which dropped it fifth and promoted Duqueine Team to the final podium spot. The trio of Ferdinand Habsburg, Robin Frijns and Sean Gelael had recovered from going a lap down after damage sustained by an impact with the guardrail during a downpour in the third hour.

***Rui Andrade, Robert Kubica and Louis Deletraz captured the points lead with their second place finish, with a four-point margin over Le Mans class winners Inter Europol Competition. “We can be proud of the team, who did a great job to bring the two cars in the top five, we were probably the only team having a two-car line-up fighting for the podium until 15 minutes from the end,” said team principal Vincent Vosse.

***Prema’s No. 63 car was compromised early on when debris from the No. 311 Action Express Racing Cadillac inflicted bodywork and air intake damage when Jack Aitken crashed on the opening lap. Daniil Kvyat then brought an early end to a comeback drive when he crashed at the Porsche Curves during the night.

***Corvette Racing utilized a spotter for the first time at Le Mans, in Andy Jaenen, a long-time spotter of Ben Keating. Jaenen had a seat in the team’s garage timing stand and spent the entire race flipping through the closed-circuit corner camera feeds to follow the GTE-Am class-winning No. 33 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R on track.

***Keating and co-drivers Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone now hold a commanding 74-point lead in the class standings heading into next month’s 6 Hours of Monza, where they could mathematically clinch the championship three races early.

***Former NASCAR Cup Series driver Landon Cassill revealed in a Twitter thread that he undertook early simulator testing for the NASCAR Garage 56 project in early 2020. Cassill said that the work occurred during a virtual test for NASCAR’s NextGen regulations at the Dallara simulator in Indianapolis.

***The Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR-19 lost a likely GTE-Am podium due to a brake disc and pad change that resulted in a long final pit stop. Reflecting on the call, team principal Andrea Piccini told Sportscar365: “It was very close. But you have to be safe as well.”

***GR Racing profited from the Iron Dames delay to finish third, but Riccardo Pera later revealed that his No. 86 Porsche was also struggling with its brakes. “We didn’t change brakes and my pedal was completely down at the end,” he said. “The last two or three laps, I just survived.”

***GR Racing claimed its maiden Le Mans podium, and its first WEC podium since the 2019 8 Hours of Bahrain, ending a run of 18 consecutive races without a top-three result.

***Pera, who claimed his second GTE-Am podium at Le Mans, said of GR Racings result: “It’s really emotional and I’m really happy for them. “A lot of good work from the mechanics. They did a good job throughout the week.”

***The No. 56 Project 1 – AO Porsche, which was fighting for a podium in the closing stages, dropped out of contention when a right-rear suspension problem began to manifest with four hours to go, relegating ‘Rexy’ to a seventh place class result. “We thought we could manage to the end, but it became too severe and we had to stop,” Gunnar Jeannette told Sportscar365.

***Proton Competition had a disastrous race, as team principal Christian Ried revealed that three Porsche chassis – the No. 77, the No. 88 and the No. 911 – were damaged in separate accidents. At the time of publication, the status of the No. 16, and the Iron Lynx-entered No. 60 which Proton owns, was unclear after their collision at Tertre Rouge.

***The ACO announced a record 325,000 spectators for the event, significantly up from the 244,200 fans from last year. Tickets had been sold out for months prior to this year’s race.

***Toyota Motor Corporation president Akio Toyoda completed a demonstration lap in a Toyota GR Corolla H2 Concept as part of the pre-race activities. Contrasting to a previous report, the recently unveiled Toyota GR H2 Racing Concept did not take part in the demo.

***Cadillac Racing PR representative Dave Lewandowski received the ACO-UJSF communication award for the best communicator at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. The award, given annually since 1994, was voted upon by a dozen motorsports journalists, including Sportscar365’s John Dagys.

Daniel Lloyd & Davey Euwema contributed to this report

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John