2003 24 Hours of Le Mans

The 71st 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: 71^e 24 Heures du Mans, link=no) was a non-championship 24-hour automobile endurance race held for Le Mans Prototype and Grand Touring cars from 14 to 15 June 2003 at the Circuit de la Sarthe close to Le Mans, France before approximately 220,000 people. It was the 71st edition of the 24 Hour race, as organised by the automotive group, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) since 1923. A test day was held seven weeks prior to the race on 4 May.

A Bentley Speed 8 shared by Dane Tom Kristensen, Italian Rinaldo Capello and Englishman Guy Smith started from pole position after Kristensen set the fastest overall lap time in the second qualifying session. The team won the race, two laps ahead of the sister Bentley of Mark Blundell, David Brabham and Johnny Herbert in second place. It was Capello and Smith's first Le Mans victory and Kristensen's fifth. This was the sixth overall victory for Bentley, and their first since the 1930 edition. The overall podium was completed by Champion Racing's Audi R8 of JJ Lehto, Emanuele Pirro and Stefan Johansson, which won the Le Mans Prototype 900 (LMP900) category from Audi Sport Japan Team Goh's entry driven by Seiji Ara, Jan Magnussen and Marco Werner.

A Noël del Bello Racing Reynard 2KQ-LM driven by Jean-Luc Maury-Laribière, Christophe Pillon and Didier André won the Le Mans Prototype 675 (LMP675) class, 32 laps ahead of the second-placed RN Motorsport DBA4 03S-Zytek car of John Nielsen, Casper Elgaard and Hayanari Shimoda. The Veloqx Prodrive Racing team of Jamie Davies, Tomáš Enge, Peter Kox won the Le Mans Grand Touring Sport (LMGTS) class in a Ferrari 550-GTS Maranello, securing Ferrari its first GT win since the 1981 race. Corvette Racing completed the category podium positions a further ten laps behind in second and third with their two C5-Rs. Porsche took the first six positions in the Le Mans Grand Touring (LMGT) category with an Alex Job Racing (AJR) 911-GT3 RS of Sascha Maassen, Emmanuel Collard and Lucas Luhr winning on the team's debut appearance at Le Mans.

Background and regulation changes

The 2003 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 71st edition of the race and took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe road racing circuit close to Le Mans, France, from 14 to 15 June. The race was first held in 1923 after the automotive journalist Charles Faroux, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) general secretary Georges Durand and the industrialist Emile Coquile agreed to hold a test of vehicle reliability and durability. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is considered one of the world's most prestigious motor races and is part of the Triple Crown of Motorsport.

After the 2002 race, the ACO reduced the overall amount of horsepower for the Le Mans Grand Touring Prototype (LMGTP), Le Mans Prototype 900 (LMP900), Le Mans Prototype 675 (LMP675), Le Mans Grand Touring Sports (LMGTS) and LMGT (Le Mans Grand Touring) categories by 10 per cent. It allowed carbon fibre chassis to be introduced in the LMGTS class and permitted original automatic and semi-automatic gearboxes to be retained in a homologated road vehicle entered in the LMGTS and LMGT categories. Air restrictors were installed on every engine and boost pressures were altered in an attempt to create a parity of performance within all four categories. Drivers were told at a public meeting that they were barred from putting two wheels of a car over the white line denoting the boundaries of the circuit and onto the kerbing; otherwise, they would incur a stop-and-go penalty that would increase in severity if the transgression was repeated.

Entries

The ACO received 72 applications (31 for the Prototype classes and 41 for the Grand Touring categories) by the deadline for entries on 20 February 2003. It granted 50 invitations to the race and entries were divided between the LMP900, LMGTP, LMP675, LMGTS and LMGT classes.

Automatic entries

Six automatic entry invitations were earned by teams of two cars that won their class in the 2002 24 Hours of Le Mans or in the 2002 American Le Mans Series (ALMS) season-closing round, the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, designated a qualifying race by the ACO as part of an agreement with the ALMS. As entries were designated for teams, the squads were not allowed to change their cars from the previous year to the next. They were permitted to change category provided there was no change in the make of car and the ACO consented to the switch. The teams who received an automatic entry based on victory in their class at the 2002 24 Hours of Le Mans were Audi Sport Team Joest in both of the LMP categories, Corvette Racing for the LMGTS class and The Racer's Group (TRG) in the LMGT category. Audi Sport North America and Corvette also earned berths for securing victories in their respective classes at the Petit Le Mans and Alex Job Racing in the LMGT category. However, Audi chose not to accept its automatic invitations after the manufacturer announced the withdrawal of its factory operations and forwent its defense of the overall victory.

Entry list

On 25 March 2003, the selection committee of the ACO announced the full 50-car entry list for Le Mans, plus six reserves. The field was composed of an equal number of Prototype and GT cars, representing 22 different makes of car (14 in the GT classes and 8 in the Prototype categories). After a protest was raised by Larbre Compétition owner Jack Leconte and alpine skier Luc Alphand over their respective teams being allocated one entry, Michel Cosson, the president of the ACO, said that entries selected appeared to be of high quality and the automotive group wanted the field to be heterogeneous. He stated it was not the right way to select entries for the race, but he disliked those who sought to spoil the excitement of the event.

Bio-ethanol car

Team Nasamax, an operation based in Sittingbourne, England, entered the first renewable-fuelled sports prototype racing car at the Le Mans event to increase awareness of renewable fuels. The car, called the Reynard 01Q, ran a Cosworth V8 turbocharged engine on bio-ethanol fuel, which does not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere because it is produced from crops. The car's fuel systems and inlet air system were modified to allow for the efficient combustion of fuel. An alternative exhaust system was built and the housing and vanes on the turbocharger were altered.

Testing

A mandatory pre-Le Mans testing day split into two daytime sessions of four hours each was held at the circuit on 4 May, involving all 50 entries as well as all six reserve cars. The weather was clear and dry. Bentley was fastest with a lap of 3 minutes, 34.820 seconds set by Tom Kristensen in the 7 Speed 8 in the final minutes of testing. Jan Magnussen was the fastest of the privateer Audi R8s for Team Goh in second place and the No. 7 Bentley was third. The Audi Sport UK and the Champion Racing entries were fourth and fifth. Late in testing, Frank Biela lost control on a patch of oil laid by a Pagani Zonda at the Porsche Curves, crashing into a barrier at and damaging the right-rear corner of the Audi Sport UK car. The No. 26 RN Motorsport DBA4 03S-Zytek car led in LMP675 with a 3 minutes, 47.708 seconds lap, followed by the No. 29 Noël del Bello Racing Reynard 2KQ-LM and the No. 27 Intersport Racing MG-Lola EX257vehicles. Tomáš Enge's No. 88 Prodrive Ferrari 550-GTS Maranello recorded the fastest lap in LMGTS at 3 minutes, 57.180 seconds, the sister No. 80 car of Kelvin Burt placed second and Jérôme Policand completed a top-three sweep of Ferraris in the class in the No. 72 Luc Alphand Aventures entry. Jörg Bergmeister's No. 81 TRG Porsche 911 GT3-RS led the LMGT category at 4 minutes, 8.636 seconds and the No. 93 Alex Job Racing (AJR) car of Sascha Maassen was second.

Qualifying

A total of eight hours of qualifying divided into four two-hour sessions were available to all the entrants on 11 and 12 June. During the sessions, all entrants were required to set a time within 110 per cent of the fastest lap set by the fastest vehicle in each of the four categories to qualify for the race. The weather was overcast and humid, and teams focused on car setup. Bentley led early on with a flying lap from Mark Blundell's No. 8 car, followed by Kristensen and Johnny Herbert, who went faster. Ultimately, Blundell went to the top with a lap of 3 minutes, 35.321 seconds. Kristensen's No. 7 vehicle was a quarter of a second slower in second and Jan Magnussen was the fastest Audi privateer in third. Jan Lammers' No. 15 Racing for Holland Dome S101 improved on each of his timed laps to finish fourth, and JJ Lehto of Champion Racing was fifth. John Nielsen carried RN Motorsport's DBA4 03S-Zytek car to provisional pole position in LMP675 with a time of 3 minutes, 45.243 seconds, eight seconds ahead of the Intersport and Automotive Durango SRL teams. A lap of 3 minutes, 55.613 seconds set with five minutes to go put Oliver Gavin's No. 50 Chevrolet Corvette C5-R at the top of the LMGTS category, demoting Enge's Prodrive Ferrari to second. Johnny O'Connell's No. 53 car was third after setting a lap in the final ten minutes. AJR's Porsche of Maassen topped the timing charts in LMGT, almost three seconds faster than Timo Bernhard's TRG car and another seven-tenths ahead of Marc Lieb's No. 87 Orbit entry. Separate spins from Chris McMurry, Kevin Buckler, Peter Kox and Andrew Bagnall did not disrupt the session.

Wednesday night's qualifying session was held with lower asphalt temperatures and teams performed scheduled simulation runs to see how their cars would behave on heavy fuel loads and worn tyres under darkness in its final 75 minutes. A lack of slower traffic and better grip allowed Kristensen to displace Blundell as the fastest overall and twice improve the overall fastest lap to 3 minutes, 32.843 seconds, followed by David Brabham's sister No. 8 Bentley in second and Biela's No. 10 Audi third. Emanuele Pirro put the No. 6 Audi fourth as Lammers fell to fifth. Marco Werner's Team Goh Audi ran into a gravel trap; he continued driving. In LMP675, Nielsen improved the RN Motorsport Zytek car's lap by a second to 3 minutes, 44.343 and increased its advantage over the Intersport team to almost ten seconds. 75 minutes into the session, the Team Bucknum Racing Pilbeam-JPX MP91 car had an engine fault at Indianapolis corner and laid oil on the track. Marshals took 20 minutes to dry the spilled oil and qualifying resumed. Enge's Prodrive Ferrari led from the start in the LMGTS class. He improved on Corvette Racing's lap from the first session to a 3 minutes, 53.278 seconds. Maassen in the AJR Porsche remained at the top of the LMGT category after a session-long battle with Bernhard. Bagnall lost control of the Seikel Motorsport Porsche and got beached in a gravel trap. David Warnock's PK Sport car sustained track rod damage in a collision with a Prototype in the Dunlop Chicane.

Thursday's first qualifying session was stopped after seven minutes because of an accident. Jamie Campbell-Walter spun a Lister Storm LMP car after hitting a bump on the exit of the Dunlop Esses. He crashed backwards against a left-hand side barrier at the Dunlop Curve at . The impact was measured at , and marshals and safety teams spent ten minutes extricating Campbell-Walter from the car, removing a section of carbon fibre bodywork trapping his legs and put him into an ambulance. The Lister Storm LMP car was later withdrawn due to a lack of spare parts. Later, Ian Khan's Thierry Perrier Porsche engine failed and laid oil on the circuit at the Dunlop Chicane. Robin Liddell was caught out, hit the oil and spun into a gravel trap. At the same time, Roland Bervillé spun, hit a barrier with his front-right hand corner and broke the rear wing on the T2M Motorsport car, temporarily stopping the session. Herbert's No. 8 Bentley led the session with a lap of 3 minutes, 35.126 seconds but remained second on the provisional grid. Magnussen used lower air temperatures to improve the Team Goh Audi's lap and pass Lammers for third at the close of the session. Lehto bettered the Champion Racing's entry to stay fourth. Although the RN Motorsport Zytek car did not better its lap, it remained on provisional pole in LMP675, while the Intersport Lola vehicle improved by more than five seconds to remain in second in class. Enge's lap from the second session kept him at the top of LMGTS as Darren Turner in the sister Prodrive Ferrari overtook the No. 50 Corvette for second. AJR continued to lead the LMGT class due to its lap from the previous day.

The final session was used to test cars under race conditions and saw more incidents. Thomas Erdos in the Graham Nash Motorsport Saleen S7-R stopped on his out-lap in a gravel trap at the Dunlop Chicane, requiring recovery from trackside marshals. Gavin Pickering's Rachel Welter WR-Peugeot car stopped at the exit of the pit lane with bodywork flailing from it. Kristensen allowed his co-drivers Rinaldo Capello and Guy Smith to become familiar with the No. 7 Bentley, which led the session and secured the pole position through Kristensen's lap from the second session. Herbert improved the sister No. 8 Bentley's lap on his second attempt by one-tenth of a second; it remained in second overall due to slower traffic delaying Herbert. Audi were unable to challenge but Biela improved the Audi Sport UK team's fastest lap to take third and Magnussen qualified the Team Goh car fifth; they were separated by Lammers' Racing for Holland Dome car. Intersport's MG-Lola car went faster but it was not fast enough to displace the RN Motorsport Zytek car, which was impaired by a broken throttle linkage, from the top of the LMP675 category and was two seconds slower. The GT categories remained mostly the same with the second session lap of Enge's No. 88 Prodrive Ferrari in LMGTS class again not being improved upon as his teammate Turner moved to within four-tenths of a second. Porsche took the first three positions in the LMGT category, with Lucas Luhr's AJR car resetting the category lap record to a 4 minutes, 6.984 seconds and Bernhard's TRG entry was four-hundredths of a seconds behind in second.

Qualifying results

Pole position winners in each class are indicated in bold The fastest time set by each entry is denoted in gray.

Notes:
* – The No. 20 Lister Storm LMP was withdrawn due to accident damage in the third qualifying session.

Warm-up

The drivers took to the track at 09:00 Central European Summer Time ( UTC+02:00) for a 45-minute warm-up session in overcast and cool weather. Bentley continued to be fastest overall as Blundell's No. 8 car recorded a lap of 3 minutes, 35.319 seconds. He was 2.615 seconds faster than the No. 7 Bentley in second place. The Audi Sport UK R8 was third, Champion Racing was fourth and the Racing for Holland Home car rounded out the top five. RN Motorsport's Zytek car continued to lead in LMP675, as the No. 50 Corvette led the LMGTS field and the TRG Porsche led in LMGT. Shortly after the session commenced, Romain Dumas' Team Nasamax Reynard had an ignition problem caused by a heat leak at the right of the engine's cylinder bank, significantly damaging its engine compartment and required a significant change of car components.

Race

Start

Thunderstorms were forecast, and despite an earlier heavy rain shower, the weather at the start of the race was clear. The air temperature approached . Approximately 220,000 people attended the event. The two Bentley Speed 8s underwent checks to their ride heights, Ray Mallock rectified a faulty gearbox that leaked oil in the No. 64 Saleen S7-R, and Kondo Racing replaced the No. 9 Dome S101's V8 engine after a water leak. The French tricolour was waved by the founder of the ALMS Don Panoz at 16:00 Central European Summer Time to signal the start of the race, led by the starting pole sitter Capello's No. 7 Bentley. 49 cars planned to take the start following the withdrawal of the Lister Storm LMP, but the No. 25 Gerard Welter WR LMP02 was in the pit lane with a mechanical fault. Capello maintained the lead and Lammers' Racing for Holland car passed Magnussen's Team Goh Audi for third. At the end of the first lap, Gavin brought the No. 50 Corvette into the pit lane with a throttle linkage problem that lost the car 26 minutes and dropped it to last overall. Lammers fell from second to sixth when the three privateer Audis passed him as Bentley quickly pulled away from the rest of the field. Herbert briefly took the lead from Capello before making the No. 8 Bentley's first pit stop of the event on lap 10. Meanwhile, Intersport's Lola-MG vehicle moved to the front of LMP675 after the RN Motorsport Zytek developed car trouble and AJR led the LMGT category.

The first hour of the race ended with the first crash as the No. 91 TVR Tuscan T400R of Richard Stanton was hit from behind by a Gerard Walter WR LMP02 car in the Porsche Curves, sending him into the outside concrete barrier at the exit to the complex. The impact broke the Tuscan's right-rear suspension, stranding Stanton at the complex of turns. The car was retired after repairs made to its differential by Stanton to make it drive-able for a return to the pit lane proved unsuccessful. Not long after, Capello locked the No. 7 Bentley's brakes going into the right-hand Mulsanne Corner and he slowed to stop the car from spinning into a gravel trap. He held off Herbert in a large amount of slower traffic until Herbert passed him to retake the lead on the 23rd lap. Kristensen relieved Capello in the No. 7 Bentley and retook the overall lead from Lehto's Audi R8 three laps later. Brabham's sister No. 8 car was called into the pit lane to have a loose door frame fixed in a ten-second stop. Casper Elgaard had been the fastest driver in LMP675 at the time, returning the RN Motorsport Zytek to the lead of the class. Audi Sport UK instructed Biela to enter the pit lane on lap 28. He was prevented from doing so by a Panoz prototype vehicle to his right and was required to complete an additional lap. The R8 slowed with a lack of fuel through Mulsanne Corner and it was retired at the side of the track after Biela's attempt to weave and keep the car running on its starter failed.

In the third hour, Kristensen almost made contact with Jean-Marc Gounon's Courage Compétition Judd exiting the pit lane. Beppe Gabbiani's Racing for Holland car hit Kelly Collins' No. 50 Corvette at Arnage corner and both cars spun. Brabham's No. 8 Bentley passed Werner's Team Goh Audi R8 for second at the Dunlop Curve though Werner used slower traffic to retake the position. Brabham returned to second when Werner entered the pit lane as the RN Motorsport Zytek car lost the lead of the LMP675 class to Noël del Bello Racing's Reynard car of Didier André as its alternator was changed. Safety cars were deployed after 3 hours and 40 minutes to slow the race because oil was laid by an unknown car between the Mulsanne and Indianapolis turns. This prompted several cars to make pit stops and brought much of the field closer. In the main LMP categories, the safety cars separated the field, leaving the Bentleys more than 2 minutes and 17 seconds of each other, 50 seconds ahead of Werner's Team Goh Audi and another 50 seconds in front of Stefan Johansson's Champion Racing car. The lead of LMGT changed as Emmanuel Collard's AJR Porsche was forced into the pit lane with a malfunctioning gearshift, allowing Buckler's TRG vehicle to take the category lead until Bernhard made an unscheduled pit stop to replace a heavily slipping clutch. The No. 88 Prodrive Ferrari of Jamie Davies came to the pit lane for a two-minute stop to rectify a water leak, ceding the lead to the sister No. 80 car of Kelvin Burt.

Night

As night fell, the lead of the LMP675 category switched from the No. 29 Noël del Bello Racing's Reynard vehicle to the Intersport Racing MG-Lola car, which later had an anxious moment when driver Duncan Dayton spun at the PlayStation chicane. He managed to retain the lead in the class. Soon after, Tom Coronel's St Team Orange Spyker C8 Double-12R stopped at the entry to the pit lane with a clutch failure. He exited the car to push it beyond a white line denoting where his pit crew could provide assistance. Coronel was then told by a trackside marshal that he was not permitted to push the car any further and it dropped out of reach of completing the laps necessary for classification. At the front of the field, the gap between Smith and Capello's No. 7 Bentley and Blundell and Herbert's sister No. 8 car was 33 seconds. Third position was the Champion Racing Audi R8 of Pirro and Seiji Ara's Team Goh entry was fourth. The LMGTS category was a close battle between the Prodrive pair of Kox and Anthony Davidson, as both cars set next to identical lap times during the seventh hour. Ron Fellows' No. 53 Corvette equalled their pace until the Ferraris responded by increasing their speed. In the eighth hour, Davidson spun into a gravel trap at the PlayStation chicane. The resulting pit stop to change the No. 80 Prodrive Ferrari's tyres and a precautionary check lost Davidson two laps and third place in LMGTS to Fellows.

A multi-car battle for eighth place overall developed between David Saelens' Panoz, the Courage Compétition of Gounon and Christophe Tinseau's Riley & Scott Mk III C-Ford; all three drivers were within 20 seconds of each other. Tinseau bowed out of the battle after a routine pit stop, leaving Saelens and Gounon 18 seconds apart. On lap 116, Herbert's No. 8 Bentley made a pit stop; a miscommunication between the mechanic holding a jack and a rear tyre fitter lost him ten seconds. 19 laps later, Lammers' Racing for Holland car lowered a 15-second gap through its faster pace to pass Olivier Beretta's Riley & Scott Ford in the final third of the lap for fifth overall. Soon after, Beretta picked up a puncture from hitting debris on the dirty side of the Mulsanne Straight at and slowed en route to the pit lane. The second-place car in the LMGTS category, the No. 50 Corvette of Fellows, was hindered by a suspected alternator belt failure and entered the pit lane. Mechanics found it was a broken pulley operating the vehicle's oil pump. They replaced the support and the battery, enabling Fellows to rejoin the circuit fourth in class. Kristensen's No. 7 Bentley had a 1-minute and 40-second pit stop to have minor damage at the front of the car repaired; he retained the overall lead over Brabham's sister No. 8 car. Luhr's No. 83 AJR Porsche succumbed to raised oil and water temperatures caused by a sharp rock penetrating its radiator. It spent 24 minutes and five laps having its radiator replaced and Luhr ceded the LMGT class lead to Kazuyuki Nishizawa's No. 77 Team Taisan Advan car.

Magnussen spun at the Ford chicane and damaged the front suspension on Team Goh's Audi R8. He drove the car to the pit lane and mechanics took 8 minutes and 53 seconds to make repairs. The car rejoined in fourth place with Werner driving. Noël del Bello Racing had an anxious moment when driver Jean-Luc Maury-Laribière spun into a gravel trap at the Dunlop Curves. He recovered with assistance from trackside marshals without losing the LMP675 class lead. Soheil Ayari's No. 18 Courage vehicle overtook Scott Maxwell's No. 12 Panoz LMP01 Evo car for ninth overall and pulled away. All three of the top cars in LMGT were within a lap of each other, led by Johnny Mowlem's No. 94 Risi Competizione Ferrari after Team Taisan Advan made a pit stop to replace the driver's-side door. Mowlem held it until his car's engine failed on the Mulsanne Straight and ceded the lead of the class to Lieb's Orbit Porsche. Werner's Team Goh Audi R8 twice drove into its garage for repairs to its engine control unit and lost 10 minutes and 14 seconds. Werner rejoined 3 minutes and 20 seconds in front of Andy Wallace's No. 15 Racing for Holland car. As the race approached its halfway point, the No. 7 Bentley of Smith lapped two to five seconds faster than Blundell's No. 8 car and increased the vehicle's overall lead to 1 minute and 20 seconds.

Morning to early afternoon

In the 12th hour, the second-placed car in LMGTS, Davidson's No. 80 Prodrive Ferrari had a right-front wheel bearing fault at and was sent into a barrier at the end of the Mulsanne Straight. He extricated himself from the car and was tended to by trackside marshals. Davidson was transported by ambulance to the infield medical centre for circuit doctors to examine him. They found he had sustained bruising and a head concussion from hitting his head against a door; he was taken to Centre Hospitalier Le Mans for a brain scan. The Ferrari's retirement elevated the No. 50 Corvette C5-R of Gavin to second in LMGTS. Prodrive asked Kox in the No. 88 Ferrari to enter the pit lane for a precautionary brake check. Not long after, a low voltage indicator warning and no radio communication to the No. 8 Bentley's pit stall prompted Blundell to make a pit stop for a replacement battery, losing the car two laps to the sister No. 7 entry. The lead of LMGT continued to be closely fought with the No. 93 AJR Porsche heading the field until a front splitter problem forced it into the pit lane for four minutes, giving the position to Lieb's Orbit vehicle. Because of the mechanical attrition affecting the Porsche 996s in the LMGT category, only two Porsches remained in contention for a victory and Ferrari was unable to challenge the marque. Front suspension problems for the No. 12 Panoz car and an engine failure curtailing the No. 4 Riley & Scott Mk III C's race promoted the No. 88 Prodrive Ferrari to tenth overall.

Luhr and Maashen's No. 93 AJR Porsche was able to fight with Lieb and later Leo Hindery's No. 87 Orbit car and eventually retake the lead of the LMGT category it had lost when it entered the pit lane for car repairs. An hour and 20 minutes later, Lammers picked up a left-rear puncture, losing control of the No. 15 Racing For Holland car under braking. He spun several times backwards into a gravel trap at Indianapolis corner and damaged a rear wheel. The car was pushed back onto the circuit by track marshals and Lammers drove to the pit lane to repair the damage. At the same time, Gunnar Jeannette's No. 11 Panoz LMP01 Evo car locked up and made light contact with the tyre barrier at Arnage corner. Further up the field, Brabham made an unscheduled pit stop in the No. 8 Bentley to undergo a second battery replacement. The change took 3 minutes, 32 seconds and the car returned to the race in second overall. Not long after Collins' No. 50 Corvette bowed out of the battle for the LMGTS lead to have its transmission bearing replaced and it was completed in 15 minutes. Lehto's Champion Racing R8 could not take advantage of the No. 8 Bentley's mechanical impairments and lost one additional lap after a spin. At the start of the 18th hour, Saelens in the No. 12 Panoz car lost grip through Mulsanne corner and made left-front contact with a tyre barrier at high speed. Saelens was unhurt but the damage to the car forced its retirement.

The No. 93 AJR Porsche of Maassen entered the garage with loss of voltage corrected by changing the alternator in six minutes. Maassen returned to the track still leading the LMGT category. Soon after, Wallace's No. 15 Racing for Holland Dome had a flat battery that dropped the car from fifth to eighth overall. Gabbiani's sister No. 16 car had its front-left tyre delaminate and carbon fibre debris was launched from the car's front-left corner. Safety cars were required for the second time as the track needed cleaning and prompted several cars to make pit stops. Beretta's No. 11 Panoz car was the main beneficiary from the safety car period and he passed Jonathan Cochet's No. 13 Courage C60 vehicle on the Mulsanne Straight for fifth overall. Towards the end of the 20th hour, the LMP675 class leading Noël del Bello Reynard slowed with a misfiring engine but the car's 35-lap advantage kept it in the category lead. The No. 15 Racing for Holland car of John Bosch returned to seventh when Ayari's No. 18 Courage C60 began leaking fluids at its rear and entered the pit lane for a 22-minute repair. With the first four positions stable, attention focused on the battle for fifth place between the No. 11 Panoz LMP01 Evo and the No. 13 Courage C60 cars. The No. 99 XL Racing Ferrari of Gaël Lasoudier had an rear engine bay fire at the PlayStation Chicane, causing the deployment of the safety cars for the third time in the race.

Finish

As the safety car period ended, Max Papis in the No. 11 Panoz LMP01 Evo car caught and passed Stéphan Grégoire's No. 13 Courage C60 vehicle at Tetre Rouge corner. Fellows overtook his Corvette Racing teammate Collins in the final third of the lap for second in LMGTS. Collins retook the position from Fellows two laps later until they made pit stops for fuel, tyres and a change of driver. O'Connell relieved Fellows and returned to second by having a faster stop than Andy Pilgrim. The No. 17 Pescarolo Courage 60 car of Jean-Christophe Boullion's had a flash fire when fuel ignited during a pit stop. An intervention from the team's mechanics to extinguish the fire allowed him to continue driving. The Champion Racing Audi of Johansson stalled during a pit stop for tyres, fuel and a driver switch with co-driver Pirro. The fault was rectified by replacing the car's battery at the right-hand corner of its cockpit. It rejoined the track still in third place and ahead of Ara's Team Goh Audi. Lammers' No. 15 Racing for Holland Dome car in seventh caught and overtook Gounon's No. 13 Courage Compétition C60 vehicle on the race's final lap to claim sixth overall for his team. In the meantime, Tristan Gommendy crashed at the Indianapolis corner. He drove the No. 16 Racing for Holland car into the pit lane to retire.

Unhindered in the final hours of the race, Smith took the chequered flag for the No. 7 Bentley, two laps ahead of the No. 8 Bentley of Brabham. Audi, in their first defeat at Le Mans since the 2000 edition, were a further three laps behind in third to win the LMP900 class with Champion Racing's R8 and Team Goh took fourth. It was Smith and Capello's first Le Mans victory and Kristensen's fifth. Kristensen became the first driver in history to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans four times in a row. He also equalled Derek Bell's record of five victories and was one behind Jacky Ickx's all-time record of six wins. It was Bentley's sixth overall Le Mans victory and its first since the 1930 race. Prodrive held their ten-lap lead in the LMGTS category, earning Enge, Kox and Davies their first class victories and the first for Ferrari in a GT class since the 1981 edition. Corvette Racing completed the class podium with the No. 50 ahead of the No. 53. Porsche took the first six places in the LMGT class with AJR taking the category win on the team's first visit to Le Mans. Orbit Racing and Thierry Perrier were the final two category podium finishers in second and third. Noël del Bello Racing, unchallenged since the night, were victorious in the LMP675 class, 31 laps ahead of the RN Motorsport Zytek and 84 laps in front of Rachel Welter's WR LMP01.

Race classification

The minimum number of laps for classification (70 per cent of the overall winning car's race distance) was 264 laps. Class winners are denoted with bold.

References

External links

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