Bottom post of the previous page:
Hi Stranger! Hope all is well with you and your family Toni.
His Chris. All fine here. Kids are growing and my work takes me 12 hours a day. office is just 5 minutes from home but it seemingly became my real house. The owners are car enthusiasts, they even organised a kart company race last year (i did good in qualy but ended winning the maldonado prize for more crashes in a 15 minutes race…getting older no more the same conditioning I had once). I just ended the recording of the new album of my new band, released in march 2024.Everso Biggyballies wrote: ↑10 months agoHi Stranger! Hope all is well with you and your family Toni.
Yes a great result and on the day they were the team to beat and deserved the honours. As we said here earlier to win here for the first time since 1965 and at the first visit for 50 years.
https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/fer ... -mans-win/Ferrari Beats Toyota to Historic 24H Le Mans Win
Pier Guidi, Calado, Giovinazzi give Ferrari first outright Le Mans win in 58 years…
by John Dagys
June 11, 2023
Photo: WEC
Ferrari has claimed its first overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in nearly 60 years, breaking Toyota’s five-year win streak in a thrilling centenary edition of the French endurance classic.
Alessandro Pier Guidi took the No. 51 AF Corse-run Ferrari 499P to a 1-minute 21-second win over the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Ryo Hirakawa, following a near race-long duel between the two factory Hypercar juggernauts.
A brake lock-up into Arnage that led to damage to the nose and rear deck of Hirakawa’s Toyota with 1 hour and 45 minutes to go, while running less than 20 seconds behind the Ferrari, gave the Italian manufacturer clear sailing to the finish.
The incident forced Hirakawa into the pits to replace bodywork but the Japanese driver managed to hold onto second, ahead of Earl Bamber’s No. 2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, which completed the podium in third.
Pier Guidi shared top honors with his fellow Le Mans GTE-Pro class-winning co-driver James Calado as well as ex-Formula 1 driver Antonio Giovinazzi, and also was the 499P’s first win in only its fourth race in FIA World Endurance Championship competition.
It marked Ferrari’s tenth overall Le Mans crown and the first since 1965 when Masten Gregory, Ed Hugus and Jochen Rindt took the American NART squad’s Ferrari 250 LM to the win.
While the No. 50 Ferrari started on pole, Sebastien Buemi in the No. 8 Toyota jumped into an early lead and fought though a pair of early race safety cars, the second for a downpour that eliminated a number of LMP2 and GTE-Am cars.
The Ferrari vs. Toyota fight came into fore just prior to halfway, after the No. 7 Toyota retired when Kamui Kobayashi tangled with the No. 65 JMW Motorsport Ferrari 488 GTE and two LMP2 cars in the ninth hour.
The No. 50 Ferrari, meanwhile, dropped out of the lead battle in the tenth hour when a stone punctured its radiator, costing Antonio Fuoco five laps in the garage.
With the lead swapping back and forth, and the Nos. 51 and 8 cars often on split strategies, the hard-fought race came down to Ferrari’s apparent pace advantage in the morning hours, although was briefly thwarted by a long pit stop in the 17th hour for Calado due to a power cycle that briefly put Buemi back into the lead.
The No. 8 Toyota, meanwhile, fought back from a right-rear puncture and a nose change in the 16th hour after Hirakawa reportedly hit a squirrel, prior to the Japanese drivers’ brake lock up with less than two hours to go.
Cadillac’s Bamber, Richard Westbrook and Alex Lynn completed the podium in the Le Mans debut for the LMDh platform, ahead of the sister, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship-based No. 3 CGR entry of Renger van der Zande, Sebastien Bourdais and Scott Dixon in fourth.
It came despite Bourdais getting collected heading into a slow zone in the second hour that was triggered by the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari of Ulysse de Pauw. The Frenchman also spun after contact with multiple cars overnight.
Pole-sitter Fuoco and co-drivers Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen finished fifth in the No. 50 Ferrari, ahead of the pair of Glickenhaus 007 Pipos, which aside from separate spins at Indianapolis, hard largely trouble-free runs, despite the No. 708 car having started from pit lane and a late-race spin for Franck Mailleux in the No. 709.
Porsche Penske Motorsport had a race to forget, with all three of its factory Porsche 963s encountering trouble and two finishing.
The No. 5 Porsche lost time in the fifth hour when Dane Cameron went off-course at the Porsche Curves before spending 30 minutes in the garage in the 10th hour with a leaking coolant pipe when Michael Christensen was at the wheel.
Trouble then struck again with 32 minutes to go when Christensen slowed on track and limped to the pits with undisclosed issues after running in fifth. It returned to the track on the final lap to take the checkered flag in ninth.
A right-rear puncture initially put the No. 6 Porsche one lap down, although an accident by Kevin Estre at the Porsche Curves resulted in damage to the car’s floor, requiring a 45-minute stop for repairs in the 17th hour.
It was compounded by an issue with the car’s high-voltage system two hours later. The car finished 22nd overall and 11th in class.
The No. 75 Porsche, featuring crew and drivers from Porsche Penske’s WeatherTech Championship squad, was the first Hypercar retirement in the eighth hour after Mathieu Jaminet stopped on track with fuel pressure issues.
The No. 93 Peugeot 9X8 came home eighth after late-race hydraulic issues that sent both of the French LMH cars to the garage.
Gustavo Menezes led the race for 34 laps in the sister No. 94 Peugeot, largely during changing conditions, but crashed into the tire barriers at the Daytona Chicane just prior to halfway, eliminating a possible podium in the car’s Le Mans debut.
Multiple accidents for Hertz Team JOTA’s customer Porsche, including Yifei Ye crashing out of the lead in the fifth hour, resulted in a much-delayed race for the British squad that also saw lengthy trips to to the garage.
The No. 311 Action Express Racing Cadillac also had two crashes, both by Jack Aitken, including an impact into the wall at the second chicane on the opening lap while in damp conditions that saw the British-Korean racer limp the car back to the pits for repairs.
It finished 17th overall and tenth in class, ahead of the delayed No. 94 Peugeot, No. 6 Porsche and No. 38 JOTA entries, which were the only other Hypercar finishers.
Floyd Vanwall Racing Team’s race, meanwhile, came to an end in Hour 16 with a suspected engine failure when Tristan Vautier was at the wheel.
RESULTS: 24 Hours of Le Mans
Everso Biggyballies wrote: ↑10 months ago Michael Fassbender loses the rear of the #911 Proton Competition-run Porsche and into the wall hard.
Big damage, but he is able to recover the wreckage back to the pits. This wont be a short stop
2019 GTP Accuracy Champion 2021 GTP Accuracy Champion 2022 Picks and Predictions Champion Ed Hugis is a name mentioned as being a Le Mans winner back in 1965 when Ferrari last won the LM24...... his role as a driver that day was not planned, perhaps not official even, and is quite amusing.erwin greven wrote: ↑10 months agoFerrari Beats Toyota to Historic 24H Le Mans Win
Pier Guidi, Calado, Giovinazzi give Ferrari first outright Le Mans win in 58 years…
It marked Ferrari’s tenth overall Le Mans crown and the first since 1965 when Masten Gregory, Ed Hugus and Jochen Rindt took the American NART squad’s Ferrari 250 LM to the win.
Hugus, a 42 yo World War II veteran, who headed the European Cars VW distributorship in Pittsburgh. He had an under-the-radar career that included working (and funding) alongside Shelby on the original Cobra, being the first Shelby Cobra dealer, competing as one of America’s top amateur road racers, and driving in every Le Mans from 1956 through 1964..“Luigi (Chinnetti, the US Ferrari distributor involved with the NART entered Ferrari's) told me many times later that he had informed the pit official about this,” Hugus wrote in a handwritten note to a friend. “However, as Luigi said, maybe they were too busy with a wine bottle behind the pits to do so. He was disappointed and so was I. Say la vie [sic].
“I arrived at Le Mans [in 1965] and expected to drive my own NART Ferrari entry, which was to have been delivered at the track by the Ferrari factory in time for pre-race practice,”
Hehehe Gary Rogers Motorsport (who until recent years) ran in V8SC for many years (Garry himself being a former driver back in the pre V8SC ATCC days). built a 7 litre Monaro (3 of them actually) which ran is what we called the Nations Cup. It also ran and won both the shortlived Bathurst 24 Hour race for GT type cars in the early noughties, plus other local events. (The Monaro was basically a 2 door Commodore Coupe)XcraigX wrote: ↑10 months ago
Shame about the NASCAR finish. It was legit faster than all the GT cars, but mechanical issues got it in the end. I guess there is a reason there is no 24Hr NASCAR race. I would like to see an open class like this where maybe they could field V8SC, DTM, or NASCAR with a list of prescribed safety modifications.
And most of all, it is bogus. Very disapppointiong to see his name mentioned in a press bulletin. I think I'll start the rumour now that I was an uncredited reserve driver for this year's Ferrari win, maybe in twenty years time I will be an "official" Le Mans winner, tooEverso Biggyballies wrote: ↑10 months agoEd Hugis is a name mentioned as being a Le Mans winner back in 1965 when Ferrari last won the LM24...... his role as a driver that day was not planned, perhaps not official even, and is quite amusing.erwin greven wrote: ↑10 months agoFerrari Beats Toyota to Historic 24H Le Mans Win
Pier Guidi, Calado, Giovinazzi give Ferrari first outright Le Mans win in 58 years…
It marked Ferrari’s tenth overall Le Mans crown and the first since 1965 when Masten Gregory, Ed Hugus and Jochen Rindt took the American NART squad’s Ferrari 250 LM to the win.
I have since my original post looked more into it, and whilst when posting the tale was somewhat on the fence, even believing that yes I could understand Hugis involvement being minimised and kept under wraps due to the rules relating to relief drivers. At the same time knowing of Hugis saying Chinetti had told him he was to be nominated as the official reserve my initial thought was that these were just pacifying words from a perhaps embarrassed Chinetti to a clearly upset Hugis over the absence of his own promised car from the factory, having travelled from the US specifically to drive the car.Michael Ferner wrote: ↑10 months agoAnd most of all, it is bogus. Very disapppointiong to see his name mentioned in a press bulletin. I think I'll start the rumour now that I was an uncredited reserve driver for this year's Ferrari win, maybe in twenty years time I will be an "official" Le Mans winner, tooEverso Biggyballies wrote: ↑10 months agoEd Hugis is a name mentioned as being a Le Mans winner back in 1965 when Ferrari last won the LM24...... his role as a driver that day was not planned, perhaps not official even, and is quite amusing.erwin greven wrote: ↑10 months agoFerrari Beats Toyota to Historic 24H Le Mans Win
Pier Guidi, Calado, Giovinazzi give Ferrari first outright Le Mans win in 58 years…
It marked Ferrari’s tenth overall Le Mans crown and the first since 1965 when Masten Gregory, Ed Hugus and Jochen Rindt took the American NART squad’s Ferrari 250 LM to the win.
Also a tailnote from Motorsport Magaazine that followed the Nye article.... We did not know Ed Hugus, but we know others who did. One Porsche specialist friend recalls him having “a big-time car dealer’s ego, and him telling of when he retired his Porsche from Le Mans in 1959 he was leading – not true”. A major US collector whose father and family were very close to Hugus adds: “Ed was inclined to telling good stories… but I never recall him claiming to have won Le Mans until very late on…”.
Today, Louis Monnier is the immensely enthusiastic and very knowledgeable administrator of the Le Mans organising Automobile Club de l’Ouest’s Heritage Committee. Fabrice Bourrigaud curates the ACO’s archives. For us they have now unearthed and helped analyse the Club’s surviving official 1965 race records.
The archive offers three parallel sources: the Journal de Course official record of pit stop timings and work carried out, driver changes, retirements etc, as reported in real time by the pit-lane commissaires. There’s a separate listing of race order at the end of each hour. And there’s the surviving original lap chart with each car’s individual lap times.
Combining these sources now provides the clearest picture yet of the winning NART Ferrari 250LM’s progress, with some caveats. There is some variation between pit-stop timings listed in the Journal de Course and those recorded more precisely from addition of the car’s individual lap times.
Factors to note: Hugus’ 2005 letter maintains that Masten had begun a stint “around 4am”. The Journal de Course names Rindt specifically as taking over from Gregory in the car’s eighth pit stop, at 01:59 Sunday morning. No driver name is quoted for the ninth stop made at 03:38 but for the 10th stop at 05:14 Rindt is named specifically as the incoming driver, and Gregory as the driver who then rejoined at 05:16.
So Rindt clearly drove a double-stint extending from 01:59 to 05:14, from darkness into the dawn, before handing the car back to Gregory. Hugus says specifically that he took over the car from the vision-impaired Gregory – not from Rindt. But Masten did not take over from Jochen for his fifth driving stint until 05:16 that Sunday morning. He then – notionally – did a triple stint, making the car’s 11th pit stop at 06:44 and its 12th at 07:32 – his third stint finally ending with stop 13 at 08:21 when Masten is named specifically in the Journal as being the incoming driver. Therefore, if Hugus replaced him at all it must have been at either stop 11 or 12. But the car’s average lap time in Gregory’s hands between stops 10 and 11 is 3min 50.3secs, then once Hugus had perhaps taken over between stops 11 and 12 the average lap is still 3:50.8. Between stops 12 and 13, the average lap time accelerates to 3:48.3 and we have confirmation that Gregory was then the pilot in command.
So the lap times for the first two of these three candidate driver stints is consistent between the first two, matching Gregory’s prior pace, but then faster in stint three. Supporters of the Hugus claim might say that Gregory, once back in the car, drove harder to compensate to make up time he might assume that the amateur stand-in had lost – when in fact he had lost very little. Was Ed Hugus a good enough driver to have so matched Gregory’s established pace? As quick as Gregory? Most unlikely.
Bespectacled Masten’s vision was indeed restricted. Talking with Richard Attwood he once admitted he had little peripheral awareness – tunnel vision. Hugus says Masten was troubled by the early morning mist. Certainly mist around dawn was common at Le Mans, but the local weather report for June 20, 1965, lists “25-degrees Centigrade, windy”. We haven’t found a reliable race report citing mist as a problem that Sunday morning, and winds and mist don’t mix.
There may be evidence that something troubled Masten. The LM had its rear tyres and brake pads changed at its 11th stop at 06:44. The car rejoined at 06:52 after eight minutes. The following stint – which would have been the American’s sixth – is brief, however, lasting only from 06:52 to 07:32 – just 40 minutes – and covering only 11 laps instead of the usual 22-24. Could this in fact have been the short stint claimed by Ed Hugus? We doubt it, since the average lap time recorded of 3min 50.8secs is consistent with the average of Gregory’s preceding fifth stint, 3:50.3. While Ed Hugus was an experienced and capable SCCA driver, we doubt very much that he could match long-time professional, world-class Masten Gregory’s pace so closely, first time out in a strange car, mid-race, with so much hanging upon his keeping the car fit and safe…
But while Jochen Rindt lost his life in 1970, Masten Gregory in 1985, and Luigi Chinetti (aged 93) in 1994 – the first most of us heard of Ed Hugus’ claim to have co-driven that 1965 Le Mans-winning NART car was in 1999. One eye-witness survives; Chinetti Sr’s son Luigi Jr, himself a capable endurance racing driver known to many as ‘Coco’.
He has always distanced himself from the controversy, largely – I surmise – in respect to Ed Hugus and – since Hugus’ death aged 82 in 2006 – to his family. But when pressed recently, Luigi wrote: “He always claimed to have been the third driver in the LM but I recall quite clearly seeing him from the start to the end sporting a windbreaker and a golf hat! I can assume if one did even one stint in such a car at such an event one would be wearing race uniform ’til it fell off. I took some photos toward the end and he is in the same outfit.
“No team manager would take a chance on installing a third driver unless one of the other two was unable to continue. Were this the case, all three would have been on the podium smiling happily. I might add that the marshals would or should have noted such an event as would the timer and scorers.
“There were many opportunities for a third driver to have been recognised… Certainly Goodyear as an American company in their big-time international racing debut year would have made a big deal of this… immediately after. They did make a big deal; mentioning only Rindt and Gregory…”.
Supporters of the Hugus story will emphasise that Le Mans rules specified that if one of the assigned drivers was substituted during the race by the reserve then they could not drive again for the rest of the race. Since Gregory absolutely drove again, the NART Ferrari could have been disqualified had Hugus’ involvement been spotted or disclosed. With the fuel tank-sealing plombeur and at least two other commissaires present at each stop – unless all three had been asleep, or ‘in vino’ at the time as Hugus inferred – the ploy would surely have been reported. The truth is they probably were not, and that ‘it’ never happened.
We emerge from this investigation 99 per cent sure that Ed Hugus’ claim simply cannot stand. On the evidence, Masten Gregory and Jochen Rindt won Le Mans 1965, unrelieved by any other driver.
DCN
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... -1965-win/To solve the mystery of the third driver who perhaps never was, Motor Sport has delved deep into the official race records held by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest within its archive. The data is taken from multiple documents created during the 1965 race, and checked against the Journal de Corse. It allows us to illustrate the recorded driver stints.
As we can see, there is no driver change logged around the 04:00 mark, confirming that Rindt simply drove a double stint. There is a later, potential, window just before 08:00 when Gregory stopped without much explanation. However, if Hugus took over here he would have been significantly quicker than Gregory, in his first outing in a new car. Doubtful, at best.
https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/le- ... otebook-9/Le Mans Post-Race Notebook
Sportscar365’s post-race notebook from centenary edition 24 Hours of Le Mans…
by John Dagys
June 12, 2023
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, lost time in the final hour with a right rear suspension issue that relegated ‘Rexy’ to a seventh place finish in class.
***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 distinguished motorsports journalists, including Sportscar365’s John Dagys.
Daniel Lloyd & Davey Euwema contributed to this report
Last year, the cars competing in the 24 Hours covered a combined total of 173,631 racing miles, almost exactly 100,000 more than all the cars racing in the entire, 22-race Formula 1 World Championship (73,473).Over a 100-year history, the culture of Le Mans has been incomparably enriched by countless compelling human stories, heroic deeds, triumphs and tragedies, and by dazzling achievements of engineering and racing expertise. Of the other traditional candidates, the Monaco Grand Prix remains special and yet, like that of other historic Formula 1 races, its status has been diluted by the recent escalation in the calendar. The Indianapolis 500 can no longer command worldwide attention, even though it remains the world’s biggest one-day sporting event in terms of attendance. National Geographic magazine put Le Mans at the top of a list of ‘must-see’ events that all sports enthusiasts should witness during their lifetimes, ahead even of the Olympic Games.
https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/mul ... ss-winner/Multiple Parts Confiscated from Hypercar Entries, LMP2 Winner
Parts from six cars, including Hypercar and LMP2 class-winners, impounded by FIA, ACO…
by John Dagys
June 14, 2023
Photo: MPS Agency
Multiple parts have been confiscated from five Hypercar class entries as well as the LMP2 class-winning No. 34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07 Gibson following post-race scrutineering at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Confirmed in a technical delegates report issued on Monday evening, the final results of the centenary edition of the French endurance classic is subject to “final checks of parts collected at the event” from the six cars.
Per the report, parts were taken from the No. 2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, No. 5 Penske Porsche 963, No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid, No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P, No. 93 Peugeot 9X8 and the No. 34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca.
The Inter Europol Competition car, which crossed the line first in class in the hands of Albert Costa, Fabio Scherer and Jakub Smiechowski, was the only LMP2 car to have had parts impounded. No parts were taken from any of the GTE-Am entries.
Eyewitness reports at Le Mans on Monday indicated that the Polish-flagged team’s car remained in the scrutineering bay for hours, with a large amount of the car torn apart.
The FIA has yet to announce the findings, if any, of its investigation.
“As a part of the technical scrutineering process, parts from a number of cars have indeed been collected and sealed for further checks of their compliance with technical regulations in the most optimal conditions and using the best available tools,” a FIA spokesperson told Sportscar365.
“As part of the process, the results of the investigations will be presented to the Stewards in the final report prepared by the FIA’s and the ACO’s Technical Delegates.
“Sporting equity and technical compliance are in the center of attention of the FIA and the ACO as the regulatory bodies of FIA World Endurance Championship.”
An Inter Europol Competition spokesperson has yet to return Sportscar365’s inquiry on the matter.
Where to even start? The centenary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was the race of a lifetime. It did not disappoint with an incredibly unpredictable scenario until the final minutes and a fight between Ferrari and Toyota, which will be remembered as one of the most exciting duels to have happened at the world's biggest endurance race.
In collaboration with Motul, the WEC Full Access series is back with a full in-depth episode dedicated to the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans. The best moments of the race complemented with exclusive behind-the-scenes images will put you once again at the heart of the action!
