Audi’s dominance continues at the biggest sports car race in the world.
For the fourth consecutive season, the German manufacturer is on the top step of the podium at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with now nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen of Denmark taking the checkered flag in the No. 2 Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro along with co-drivers Loic Duval and Allan McNish.
One of Audi’s sister teams, the No. 3 of Oliver Jarvis, Lucas di Grassi, and Marc Gene will join the podium as well, placing third behind the runner-up No. 8 Toyota Hybrid squad of Sebastien Buemi, Stephane Sarrazin and Anthony Davidson.
It was not an altogether perfect race for the Audi camp, with the seventh-hour problems of the No. 1 R18 (Benoit Treluyer, Marcel Fassler and Andre Lotterer) eventually causing it to fall back to fifth place at the finish, 10 laps off the pace of the No. 2. But in a race that battled to achieve a steady rhythm through a staggering amount of safety car periods, the 4-Rings’ combo of Kristensen, McNish and Duval (who put the No. 2 on the pole for this 90th anniversary edition of Le Mans) turned in a tremendous performance.
“They’re all special but this one is amazing,” Audi Sport’s Brad Kettler told SPEED Channel. “The adversity we went through, having the guys work together – just incredible. The competition was amazing. I don’t know what to say, it’ll take me a while to figure it out.”
The subsequent podium celebration for the two Audi teams and the No. 8 Toyota group was a relatively subdued one following the death of Danish driver Allan Simonsen in the first hour of the race yesterday morning.
“They’re all emotional for different reasons – this one was obviously tender after everything that happened in the race, especially with the unfortunate accident at the beginning,” three-time Le Mans winner McNish told SPEED before going to the podium.
“That obviously played a little bit into Tom on the Danish side of things, but from my point of view and [the team’s] point of view, we had to work so hard and be so clean and tidy in difficult weather conditions. That was definitely the toughest, mentally difficult race that I’ve ever done here, without any question.”
For Duval, it is his first triumph at Le Mans in his fifth career start there.
