With the help of Tim Brown, crankandpiston.com selects its favourite images from the historic 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans.
[Not a valid template]It may have taken a while, but after a 17-year gap, Porsche finally made its way back to the top of the 24 Hours of Le Mans podium. And with a current Formula 1 driver – Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg – taking the chequered flag.
Piloting Porsche’s #19 919 Hybrid – the third entered for the event – alongside Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber, Hulkenberg secured Porsche’s 17th victory at La Sarthe one lap ahead of the sister #17 entry of Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley, which lost time during the night owing to a yellow flag infringement by Hartley during his stint. The polesitting #18 entry of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb meanwhile fared less well, eventually coming home fifth overall after hitting the tyre wall at the Mulsanne corner. Third place outright went to Audi’s André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoiît Tréluyer, who brought the #7 R18 e-tron Quattro home only two laps down after losing bodywork.
In the LMP2 category, Matthew Howson, Richard Bradley and Nicolas Lapierre secured a dominant run in the #47 Oreca 05 for KCMG, while Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Jordan Taylor swooped victory in the #64 Corvette Racing C7.R to record Corvette’s first GTE Pro victory at Le Mans since 2006. GTE Am meanwhile went down to the wire as the leading #98 Aston Martin Racing Vantage V8 of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda hit trouble – and the barrier – with just one hour to run, handing the class win to SMP Racing’s Victor Shaytar, Andrea Bertolini and Aleksei Basov in the #72 Ferrari 458 Italia GT2.
Okay, enough of the round-up time for some pictures…
– Shots courtesy of Tim Brown
