This year’s Le Mans 24 Hours has been won by Audi, and 2011 will be remembered for a long time as one of the classics. Audi’s car No.2 trio of Benoit Treluyer, Andre Lotterer and Marcel Fassler prevailed at the end, but it was a very tight affair – second place went to Peugeot’s Bourdais, Lamy and Pagenaud, whose No.9 car was just 13.854 seconds behind.
There was immense pressure on Lotterer, who drove the final stint being hounded by the Peugeots, and in on/off rain. He also had to pit for a puncture with around 40 minutes remaining, so it’s a job well done.
The French cars filled the rest of the top five positions, meaning all three factory Peugeots made it to the end. Things couldn’t be more different for chief rival Audi, which saw two of their three cars involved in major crashes in the first third of the race. Thankfully, Allan McNish and Mike Rockenfeller sustained no injuries in those incidents.
The first accident saw McNish’s car No.3, who had just taken the lead shortly before the end of the first hour, collide with a Ferrari at La Chappelle. The GTE Pro class car hit the Audi’s left rear wheel, causing the R18 TDI to spin off and hit the barrier hard before rolling over and causing an explosion of car bits. This brought the safety car out.
Eight hours into the race, another Audi crashed out. This time, Rockenfeller’s car No.1, which was running second at 11 pm, was powering down the Mulsanne when he collided with (another) slow Ferrari at the kink, propelling his car into the barriers. This was a super high speed crash, and it’s a testament of the safety built into today’s race cars that “Rocky” climbed out of the car himself.
“If you pursue new paths this always involves a risk. But this risk has absolutely paid off. The Audi R18 TDI was in a class of its own at Le Mans 2011. Particularly due to the two extremely serious accidents this has been the most difficult Le Mans race for us in an emotional sense so far. That our team managed to keep the strong competition at bay for 16 hours with just one car is almost unbelievable,” said Audi Head of Motorsport, Dr Wolfgang Ullrich.
“Everyone at Audi can be proud of this triumph. However, the news that Allan and Mike came out of these extremely heavy accidents so well is at least as important as that of the tenth Audi victory,” he added.
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Audi wins?!!! I am so surprise!!!
This was one of the closest and most tension filled Le Mans. And the accidents were spectacular, luckily both drivers escaped with very little hurt. Both the accidents with the R18 Audi was caused by Ferrari 458s, the second one by a careless driver.
We were fortunate that Astro showed most of the race live on TV. The speeds these cars were going were amazing, they seem to go even faster than a video game simulation. The final 2 hours before the race ended, the Peugeot team decided to use dirty tricks and tried to push the sole remaining Audi off the track and into the railings. Only supreme driving by the Audi driver managed to avoid incidents and overtake the Peugeot dumbass on the same lap.
Congrats to Audi and the R18. They really deserve the title after harrowing incidents in the first half of the race. And I hope Peugeot will learn to race in a fair and sportsman-like manner. They were shameful and deserve to be losers of the day although all their cars remain intact.
‘..overtake the Peugeot DUMBASS on the same lap..’
I really like that statement :)
as there were no physical contact between the car, even as close as 1mm… how come u say peugeot use dirty tricks..?
it’s all about concentration, decelerating, braking and accelerating…
It is quite alright to fight and defend if you are ‘fighting for position’ with the car behind. Thats called racing but if the car you are blocking is actually several laps ahead of you and you keep deliberately blocking his path and even almost running him off the road, then you are, according to racing common sense and ethics.. a royal DUMBASS. In this case the Peugeot of Davidson and then Gene blocked the Audi for quite some time. And they were both NOT ‘fighting for position’ because both were several laps behind the Audi. Strangely there were no enthusiastic waving of the blue flags at the Peugeot, which was highly odd…
…that’s call race strategy…
yes.. so is cheating… nothing personal for the team.. just strategy..
Yes it was a great spectacle of motor racing at the very highest level of competition in my view. Just imagine this, the pace of the top diesels in d LMP2 were faster than F1 cars yet the drivers drove through in most cases at the limit of 4 hours per driver on 1 stint and then he will have to do it sometimes up 2 2-4 stints per driver. Not forgetting the teams on standby the whole week then race 24hrs and the the crew back at the factory.Truly the absolute top level of racing!! This kind of experiences if of of things that you have to do before you die at least once.
A for the racing well, from experience what the 2 peugeots were doing were legal. You have to let the lapping car pass if it is running quicker if not stand your ground. IT DOES NOT say you to move and let them pass, it does not say you have to make it easy on them especially being your direct competitor. Its just racing within the rules and making the rules work for your advantage.
In my eyes the LeMans in2010 was the best as it had 3 peugots in the LMP2 which were so much stronger than the audi’s and totally blew everyone away with their race pace. The the incidents they faced and to be laped for the 1st place then come out again and hunt down the lead audi and then on the back straight to overtake it again like overtaking a car from the GT class was a great spectacle. And then to have build the lead significantly and have the right bank turbo to fail was so sad.
Everyone was almost embaraesed with the race as it penned out and the final out come. Audi and Dr.Ulrich was very pleased and sumed it all in an old saying in motorsports, ‘To finish first , First you have to finnish’.
I cant wait for the next LeMans[bikes]. Hope it at least matches the cars.
Last weekend’s race was one of the most nail biting Le Mans 24 races that I can remember. Audi and Peugeot neck and neck from hour 1 to hour 24. Then the sight of 3 menacing Peugeots in formation, hounding and sandwiching the lone Audi. Some very, very brave driving by the Audi eventually saw it fighting past and breaking away from the intimidating Peugeot pack.
So glad ch 814 Euro Sport carried almost 20 hrs of live telecast via Astro
I’m totally agree with you! Good job Astro :)
Rolex sponsorship doesn’t seem to fit Le Mans… Rolex is old man and boring
Who is that guy ‘ MINI Countryman ‘ his video is so annoying!
go make sweet love to a cucumber up your rectum
damn the 2 slow ferrari 458 causing the the 2 Audi’s to crash… Peugeot has done a brilliant job in the race…team winner should go the Peug for all Peug reached the finishing line..
Audi #2 won the race by 13.854 sec after completing 355 laps. That is equivalent to 13.854/24 = 0.58 sec/hr gap between the winning Audi #2 and Peugeot #9. Just imagine how close the race was, when you only lead by 0.58 sec in an hour of race on average. I watched the race, I could say that Le Mans 24 hours is the most entertaining race I have even seen. Audi and Peugeot diesel-powered cars overtake the like of Ferrari 458 as if an M3 overtake a Polo. You can see a lot of overtaking which is rare in F1 race nowadays. I was a big fan of F1 before, but I think Le Mans is far more entertaining. A diesel-powered Ferrari in future? Lets see
What can I say, Le Mans is truly epic. Spectacular to have the distance between 1st and 2nd at only 13+ seconds, over a 24 hour period.
After the last pit stop, the Audi was actually only 7s ahead of the lead Peugeot. The Audi drove very well to pull ahead but I must say the Peugeot also drove fantastically trying to chase the Audi, though still on old tyres unlike the Audi. Both their lap times in the final stint was impressive
Firstly, I am disgusted as to how there is no news coverage at all about this year’s LM24 in The Star – this being one of the most epic LM24 ever and the fact that there were even hybrid cars in the race. And then this is the first time ever in the GTE Pro class that you had 3 manufacturers lining up the podium – Chevrolet, Ferrari and BMW. This is anytime more entertaining than F1. As Dr. Ulrich said – “What is F1? At Le Mans, our cars cover more distance in 24 hrs than an F1 car will do, in an entire season.” Now, that is power, technology and reliability.
One more reason to ditch The Star. Only catering to the mainstream.
Diesel power the way to go…
ehhh..what happened to the coverage of F1 Canada??
Finally the coverage of le mans is here in paultan.org. thought no one was going to write about this since the race ended on sunday but nothing was published yesterday. Anyway, congrats to audi for once again emerged as the champion! Nonetheless, the pug did a great job in improving its reliability and hence saw them completing the race unlike last year. This is by far the most exciting event if compared to F1. Hopefully next year’s race will promise more entertaining race and competitive!
enough said…Vorsprung Durch Technik..FTW!!
i watched the race for several hours…intense battle …love it….but Paul…there is story about Lotus Jetalliance as well….dont you want to cover story on that ?
Yes.. The works Lotus entry did well to finish with one car on their first attempt at Le Mans. Certainly worthy of mention. Maybe PaulTan was actually not quite aware that the race was talking place thus
yeah audi wins again…. horayyyyyy!
can we call it as tortoise vs rabbit where tortoise still win even 2 of 3 tortoise dead…..
*pug was faster in qualifying remember….but it wasn’t all about speed and power….24hours combines all factor…
*audi only using 4cylinder turbodiesel engine very efficient sub 3liter engine….(if not mistaken only 2.2 liter in displacement)
I saw the first accident that night. Its horrible. Allan Mcnish was really lucky (or it the car that has been built with excellent safety features).
I immediately surf for replay. At the same time, i just get to know that the worst accident in motorsport was also in LeMans 24 hrs race back in 1955. A merc 300 driven by Levegh crash (almost similar to McNish crash) and killed Levegh together with 86 spectators. 56 year later, the safety standard of cars and circuits has been evolve tremendously!!