Porsche has achieved its 19th overall Le Mans victory at the 85th running of the 24-hour race. Drivers Earl Bamber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard fought hard to bring the Porsche 919 Hybrid in first place after a race full of drama.
The previous evening the race looked all but over for the number 2 car. Having lost drive to the front axle, it was brought in for a lengthy repair and after an hour in the pits returned 18 laps behind the race leader.
But in true Le Mans style, a dramatic series of event unfolded and the impossible ultimately came true. After an enormous effort, the trio sliced through the field from 56th position to overall victory. For Le Mans record holder Porsche, it is the 19th overall win in the world’s toughest race and the third in a row since 2015.
For Earl Bamber it was his second Le Mans overall win at the wheel of the Porsche 919 Hybrid after 2015. Timo Bernhard also scored his second Le Mans overall win. Following on from his maiden win in 2010 when he was loaned to Audi, he had dreamed to repeat it one day with Porsche. Brendon Hartley was arguably the hungriest of this year’s six Porsche LMP works driver squad as his name had yet to be engraved onto the big trophy.
While there was elation for the number 2 car, the race ended in tragedy for the 919 Hybrid of Neel Jani, André Lotterer and Nick Tandy. For more than ten hours the car led the race, but shortly after 11am Le Mans claimed another victim.
With a lead of 13 laps, André Lotterer sent a radio message to the crew complaining of low oil pressure and was told to switch of the combustion engine and return to the pits using only electrical power. Sadly though the battery power was too low and the leading car’s race came to a devastating end at the side of the track.
This left the sister car leading the LMP1 class, but still only second overall, behind an LMP2 car. Mathematically an outright win was still possible but it was going to be tight. With the pressure now on, Brendon Hartley seemed more motivated than ever, as he chased down the lead car. After 325 laps, Hartley brought the 919 Hybrid into the pits and handed control over to Timo Bernhard for the final stint.
Battling through race traffic and the midday heat, by lap 347 a Porsche is once again leading Le Mans and after 367 laps Berhard takes the chequered flag and secures a Le Mans hattrick for the 919 Hyrbid.
Quotes after the race:
Michael Steiner, Board Member Research and Development, Porsche AG: “The ‘triple’ in Le Mans is a dream come true for Porsche and the way this third consecutive win happened is very special. I’m proud of the Porsche Team that kept fighting despite the long stop for repairs. This success also came about thanks to strong E performance and innovative hybrid technology.”
Fritz Enzinger, Vice President LMP1: “One of our ambitious targets for the 2017 season was to achieve a hat-trick at Le Mans. But what we have gone through over the past 24 hours, you could not imagine in your wildest dreams. This 24-hour race just pushed everything and everyone to the limit. It is unbelievable what you can achieve in a focussed team effort. Sometimes it is not the fastest car but the best team performance that makes the difference. This team is the best of all and made today’s success possible. The reaction from everywhere is overwhelming – from Porsche employees and also around the world. Personally I can only say thank you to Porsche for putting me in the position to set up such a great programme and thanks to every single team member for the total support and the great team spirit.”
Andreas Seidl, Team Principal: “It’s hard to find words for what happened. The drivers and the entire team have done an amazing job. We can put two tough weeks behind us that provided some highs and lows but we fought with typical Porsche spirit. It will take some time for what we have achieved today to sink in. We’ve now won Le Mans three times in a row which is just sensational. The team worked relentlessly for this over the past twelve months. Toyota was a very strong competitor. They pushed us to the limits and beyond and we both paid the price. It is a sad that Neel Jani, André Lotterer and Nick Tandy retired from the race because they controlled it for a long time. But Earl Bamber, Brendon Hartley and especially Timo Bernhard deserved to take the race win. Timo was the development driver right from the beginning of the programme. After the long repairs, the three of them kept fighting and were ultimately rewarded.”
Drivers Porsche 919 Hybrid car number 2
Earl Bamber (26, New Zealand): “I can’t believe we’ve managed to pull this one off having been at the back of the field after an hour in the pit-box. Both Brendon and Timo have been part of the Porsche LMP programme from the beginning while this victory is as much down to the guys in the pits. Without their hard work we wouldn’t have got back racing again so this win is down to them.”
Timo Bernhard (36, Germany): “It feels surreal. When I joined Porsche as a junior driver back in 1999, I carefully developed the dream to perhaps one day get the chance to fight for overall victory at Le Mans. I hoped I would be good enough to really do this one day. Now, 18 years later, we have achieved it together. The final lap was very emotional for me. It will take some time before I realize what has happened.”
Brendon Hartley (27, New Zealand): "Le Mans is one crazy race. The mechanics worked incredibly hard on Saturday evening to get our car repaired in super fast time and since that moment Timo, Earl and myself, together with our engineers, have been pushing hard, 100% every second, and desperately hoped that our efforts would somehow pay off.”