Masson Recalls “Cruel” End to Panis VDS Victory Bid

Esteban Masson has recounted the “tough and long” final 20 minutes of the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a “cruel” late suspension problem denied Panis VDS Racing a strong chance of victory in the LMP2 class.

Toyota junior Masson, who shared the No. 48 Oreca 07 Gibson with Oliver Gray and Franck Perera, appeared on course to come out on top in its virtually race-long battle with the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca in the closing stages.

That was after Nick Yelloly, who was aboard the Inter Europol car for the final stints, picked up a drive-through penalty for pit lane speeding, reversing what had been an advantage of around six seconds for the No. 43 crew.

But, Yelloly began to immediately close on Masson after serving the penalty, and was soon back into the lead as the Panis VDS car began to slow dramatically with a problem.

Masson revealed the failure was suspension-related, suspecting a broken toe link was to blame, but couldn’t hide his disappointment at coming so close to victory on his LMP2 debut at Le Mans.

“We pushed a lot, and it was a close fight,” Masson told Sportscar365. “At the end I had the call [from the team] that I needed to push to put pressure, and it worked. They got a drive-through, which was exactly what we wanted.

“Once we took the lead, we stopped pushing and something broke the front-right broke. Something was wrong with the toe; I couldn’t drive anymore, I couldn’t brake, I couldn’t drive flat out on the straights.

“It was tough and it was a long 20 minutes. It doesn’t feel good.”

Asked if the performance he showed on his way to a distant runner-up finish was any consolation, Masson replied: “At the moment, no.

“I am super-happy with the job we did all week. We did everything right; not a wheel wrong. Motorsport is cruel sometimes. Really disappointed, I can’t lie.”

Almost the entire race distance in LMP2 had been dominated by Inter Europol and Panis VDS, with the gap between the two cars rarely stretching to more than 20 seconds at any stage throughout the race, with few others looking like real contenders.

Yelloly and his teammates Tom Dillmann and Jakub Schmiekowski finally prevailed by an unrepresentative margin of one minute 55 seconds, with the third-placed Pro-Am entered AO by TF car finishing a lap behind the lead pair.

Recalling the penalty he picked up in the closing stages, Yelloly said: “I knew I made a mistake going into the pit lane, locking up the rears, just trying to make a little bit more time so we were safer with our fuel numbers.

“Obviously I was pretty annoyed with myself — I won’t repeat what I said in the helmet but I was quite angry.

“Unfortunately for [Panis VDS] they had some suspension issue and I could see them almost selecting reverse and coming back to me.

“This time Le Mans chose us and I’m obviously very happy and fortunate it was the case this time. I’m looking forward to coming back again!”

Inter Europol’s victory in LMP2 marked its second in three years after it triumphed in 2023 with Schmiekowski, Fabio Scherer and Albert Costa.