 |
| The LMP2 winning JOTA No.38 Oreca enters the pit straight on Sunday morning. |
The LMP2 class at Le Mans was virtually a one make class with 26 Oreca 07s and 1 Ligier competing. All had identical 4.2 Litre Gibson motors. Photos of all these cars and commentary on how their race went appears below. There may not be much variety in this class but I have at least taken the shots from different points at different times of day!
Without LMP2 we would have a lack of prototype cars and they did provide a good level of competition even if the No.38 JOTA car led a lot of the way after a first lap incident. In the end the Prema No.9 car, that had led only on, finished over 2 minutes behind. Well done to the whole JOTA team including Da Costa, Stevens and Gonzalez!
 |
| Seen here early in the race at Tertre Rouge, the No.31 WRT Oreca car took LMP2 hyperpole driven by Robin Frijns. In the end a penalty and a crash as it tried to catch-up put an end to its hopes. |
THE RESULTS (of the LMP2 class):
1st No.38 JOTA Oraca (Roberto Gonzalez / Antonio Felix Da Costa / William Stevens) 369 laps
 |
| The LMP2 winning JOTA Oreca No.38 entering the Esses on Sunday morning. Da Costa had done the first stint and took the lead before the first two hours were up. After that they dominated the race in LMP2 and finished fifth overall in the race after the 4 hypercars. |
2nd No.9 Prema Oreca (Robert Kubica / Louis Deletraz / Lorenzo Colombo) 2 mintues 369 laps, 21.9 seconds behind the winner
 |
| Early on Sunday morning the Prema Oreca is in second place as it enters the start finish straight. Kubica had made a great start to lead the class early on but they eventually had to settle for second. |
3rd No.28 JOTA Oreca (Oliver Rasmussen / Edward Jones / Jonathan Aberdein) 368 laps
 |
| Bumping over the Motul Chican kerbs on early Sunday morning, the JOTA Oreca is in third place and gives JOTA two out of three podium positions. |
4th No.13 TDS Racing x Vaillante Oreca (Nyck de Vries / Mathias Beche / Tijmen van der Helm) 368 laps
 |
| The TDS Racing Oreca in Tertre Rouge on Saturday afternoon. Nyck de Vries was drafted in after practice and obviously did a great job. |
5th No.5 Team Penske Oreca (Dane Cameron / Emmanuel Collard / Felipe Nasr) 368 laps
 |
| The Team Penske Oreca leads a JOTA car into the Esses. |
6th No.23 United Autosports Oreca (Alexander Lynn / Oliver Jarvis / Joshua Pierson) 368 laps
 |
| The United Autosports Oreca leads a group through the Esses on Saturday evening. It had recovered from an extra pitsop due to tyre issues early on and then a drive through for overtaking in the slow zone and then an off into the gravel. They were certainly trying!. Josh Pierson at 16 is the youngest driver ever in the 24LM. |
7th No.37 Winter Tournament Oreca (Yifei Ye / Ricky Taylor / Niklas Krütten) 367 laps
 |
| The No.37 Oreca entering the Esses on Sunday morning. |
8th No.48 IDEC Sport Oreca (Paul Lafargue / Paul Loup Chatin / Patrick Pilet) 366 laps
 |
The IDEC Sport Oreca in the Dunlop Chicane on Saturday evening. Earlier it had had a tyre come off whilst on track.
|
9th No.1 Richard Mille Racing Team Oreca (Lilou Wadoux / Sebastien Ogier / Charles Milesi) 366 laps
 |
| The Richard Mille Racing Oreca in the Dunlop Chicane. Eight times World Rally Champion Sébastien Ogier was amongst the drivers and it was his first 24 Hours of Le Mans race. |
10th No.22 United Autosports Oreca (Philip Hanson / Filipe Albuquerque / William Owen) 366 laps
 |
| The No.22 United Autosports Oreca leading a group of LMP2 cars in the Esses on Saturday afternoon. for this car it was a race of recovery as they were in the gravel just after the start and thus a top ten finish was far from a disaster . They also stopped on track briefly on Sunday morning, |
11th No.32 WRT Oreca (Rolf Ineichen / Mirko Bortolotti / Dries Vanthoor) 366 laps
 |
| The WRT Oreca in the Dunlop Chican on Saturday evening. |
12th No.65 Panis Racing Oreca (Julien Canal / Nicolas Jamin / Job Van Uitert) 366 laps
 |
| The Panis Racing Oreca leading another LMP2 car through the Esses. On Sunday they suffered a penalty for causing a collision. |
13th No.34 Inter Europol Tournament Oreca (Jakub Smiechowski / Alex Brundle / Esteban Gutierrez) 365 laps
 |
| The No.34 cars leads a group including its other team car through the Esses on Saturday afternoon. |
14th No.43 Inter Europol Tournament Oreca (David Heinemeier-Hansson / Fabio Scherer / Pietro Fittipaldi) 364 laps
 |
| The Other Inter Europol car leading a Porsche up to the Dunlop Chicane on Sunday morning. |
15th No.45 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca (James Allen / Rene Binder / Steven Thomas) 363 laps
 |
| The Algarve Pro Oreca No.45 leads its other team car through the Esses on Saturday evening. On Sunday it had a trip through the gravel but continued. This car took the LMP2 Pro-Am victory. |
16th No.24 Nielsen Racing Oreca (Rodrigo Sales / Matt Bell / Ben Hanley) 362 laps
 |
| The Nielsen Racing Oreca leads another Oreca as they lap some GTE Am cars in the Esses. |
17th No.41 Real and WRT Team Oreca (Rui Andrade / Ferdinand Habsburg / Norman Nato) 362 laps
 |
| The No.41 Oreca entering the Dunlop Chicane on Sunday morning. |
18th No.3 DKR Engineering Oreca (Laurents Hörr / Jean Glorieux / Alexandre Cougnaud) 362 laps
 |
| The DKR Oreca in the Esses on Sunday morning. |
19th No.83 AF Corse Oreca (Francois Perrodo / Nicklas Nielsen / Alessio Rovera) 361 laps
 |
| The No..83 car at night at Tertre Rouge. On Sunday morning it touched the No.64 Corvette, putting the Chevrolet out. |
20th No.47 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca (John Falb / Sophia Floersch / Jack Aitken) 361 laps
 |
| The Algarve Pro car No.47 exiting the Dunlop Chicane on Sunday morning. They had a bad start and an early pit stop that didn't help their cause. |
21st No.44 ARC Bratislava Oreca (Miroslav Konopka / Bent Viscaal / Tristan Vautier) 360 laps
 |
| The ARC No.44 Oreca entering the Dunlop Chicane on Sunday morning. |
22nd No.10 Vector Sport Oreca (Nico Muller / Ryan Cullen / Sebastien Bourdais) 357 laps
 |
| The Vector Sport Oreca No.10 at Tertre Rouge early in the race. Later it hit the barrier but continued. |
23rd No.39 Graff Racing Oreca (Eric Trouillet / Sebastien Page / David Droux) 344 laps
 |
| The Graff Racing Oreca No.39 in the Esses on Sunday morning. |
24th No.35 Last Oreca (Jean Baptiste Lahaye / Matthieu Lahaye / Francois Heriau) 335 laps
 |
| With about 20 minutes of the race gone, the No.35 Oreca enters the Esses. Later it was to be penalized for passing under the yellow flag. |
25th No.27 CD Sport Ligier (Christophe Cresp / Michael Jensen / Steven Palette) 333 laps
 |
| The only Ligier JSP217 in this LMP2 race full of Orecas was the No.27 car. With 3 debutant drivers of which two were Bronze, this car had a tough challenge. |
26th No.30 Duqueine Oreca (Richard Bradley / Guillermo Rojas / Reshad de Gerus) 326 laps
 |
| The Duqueine Oreca leads another LMP2 car in the Esses. |
DNF No.31 WRT Oracle (Sean Gelael / Robin Frijns / Rene Rast)
 |
| The No.31 was still going late on Sunday morning as we see it cut the first apex of the Esses, but eventually it became the only LMP2 car not to finish when Frijns went into the barrier. It had taken hyperpole and was running second early in the race but was given a one minute stop and go penalty for being involved in the first lap collision with car 22. |
John Etherton asserts his copyright to all of the photos on this blogpost. However, you may post the photos elsewhere on the web as long as you credit the photographer, John Etherton, and this blog post, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com and provide a link to this page.
John Etherton affirme son droit d'auteur à l'ensemble des photos sur ce billet de blog. Cependant, vous pouvez poster des photos ailleurs sur le web aussi longtemps que vous créditez le photographe, John Etherton, et ce blog, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com et fournissez un lien vers cette page.
 |
| The No.24 Oreca heads into one the chicanes at the end of the lap. |
