ELMS teams at the 24 Heures du Mans...The race within the race!

The 2014 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was won by the No.2 Audi of Benoît Tréluyer, André Lotterer and Marcel Fässler in a race full of twists and turns, especially in the last few hours. While Toyota was looking as though it would win at one stage, bad luck and a wiring loom failure at 05h00 this morning got in the way of that eventuality.  Everyone was looking forward to and was curious to see if Porsche would win Le Mans for its great comeback to endurance racing, but didn't count on an engine problem for the No.20 Porsche 919 in the final hour of the race.  But it was a great fight, with fascinating battles and a fantastic finale as, behind the No.1 Audi R18 of Tom Kristensen, Lucas di Grassi and Marc Gené, the No.8 Toyota TS040 which we'd all thought to be lost among the bottom of the classifications, ended up in third place thanks to the performance and consistency of Sébastien Buemi, Nicolas Lapierre and Anthony Davidson.

But there was also an exceptional battle amongst the 17 LMP2 prototypes, with the podium being composed of three teams from the ELMS championship, demonstrating the competitiveness of the teams and drivers in the European series.

The race within the LMP2 class was a real success and a triumph for the European Le Mans Series teams entered for this World Championship race.  Extremely close between the competitors throughout the race, it was the new Ligier JS P2s which were more successful than could have been hoped for on their debut.  Eventually, however, it was Simon Dolan, Harry Tincknell and last minute substitute Oliver Turvey who climbed onto the top step of the LMP2 podium thanks to their performance behind the wheel of the No.38 JOTA Sport Zytek Z11 SN Nissan. They finished ahead of the No.46 Thiriet by TDS Racing Ligier JS P2 and the No.36 Signatech Alpine A450b Nissan. The action was definitely non-stop in this category for the whole 24 hours, demonstrating the high level of competitiveness existing today in the European Le Mans Series.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is not included in the classifications for the European Le Mans Series, thus there are no changes to the points standings before the next round which will be held in Austria at the Red Bull Ring circuit on 19 and 20th July.

A race breakdown from each team will be online soon.