Jota Sport claims magnificent Le Mans 24 Hour race victory

Simon Dolan, Harry Tincknell and Oliver Turvey steered their JOTA Sport Zytek Z11SN to LM P2 category honours in the 82nd running of the gruelling twice-around-the-clock sportscar endurance race in France.

The Dolan/Tincknell/Turvey Zytek clocked up 356-laps equating to 3,016-miles at an average speed of 125.14mph in the world's toughest sportscar race.

The JOTA team finished one-lap ahead of its nearest rival in the ultra-competitive 17-car LM P2 field to mark the British team's eighth appearance at Le Mans in exceptional style.

Tincknell started the race from second in class on Saturday afternoon thanks to his stunning qualifying performance on Thursday evening – the Le Mans debutant deprived of “pole” position by a mere 0.065secs and he made a blistering start to lead.

All three British drivers drove faultless and consistently fast laps during their stints behind the wheel of the British-built Zytek sportscar running on Dunlop tyres.

The only unscheduled pit-stop occurred early in the race to repair some bodywork costing a seven-minutes.

Turvey had only flown out to join the team on Thursday morning after a last minute call-up after Marc Gené, Audi Sport's “reserve” driver who had been loaned to JOTA, was recalled by the German team. Oliver had not sat in the JOTA Zytek since last September while last weekend's race was his first of the year.