***Achieving its sixth overall triumph at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Toyota advanced to join Bentley in fifth place on the manufacturers’ all-time win list. The Toyota TR010 Hybrid also earned its place as the 15th hybrid prototype to claim the overall victory at Le Mans.
***Kamui Kobayashi, who also serves as the Hypercar program’s team principal, and Mike Conway secured their second Le Mans victory after their triumph together in 2021, while Nyck de Vries became just the third Dutch driver to win the endurance classic overall, following Gijs van Lennep and Jan Lammers.
***Lammers was the most recent Dutch winner, back in 1988. “It’s been a long journey this week and during the race as well,” said de Vries. “We faced various setbacks and obstacles to overcome and, frankly, at times I thought we were out of contention. But it just shows that you can never give up. It all came together and I’m so thankful for all the work the team has done to achieve this incredible milestone.”
***Toyota, which claimed its 51st FIA World Endurance Championship win, putting the Japanese manufacturer back up to 50 percent win rate, the No. 7 entry came from 14th on the grid, the lowest starting position by an overall WEC race winner, breaking the previous record of 13th, which was set by the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P in this race last year.
***It marked the second overall win from P14 on the grid, the other having been in 1969 when Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver took a J. W. Automotive Engineering Ford GT40 Mk. 1 to top overall honors, which was the last time an American manufacturer won the race outright, a feat Cadillac was aiming to achieve.
***Kobayashi’s 10.913-second victory over the No. 20 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 of Robin Frijns marked the closest timed finish in 24 Hours of Le Mans history, as well as the closest overall finish in WEC history.
***Conway, who is expected to depart Toyota at year’s end, has now claimed WEC wins in ten different seasons, only the second driver to do so alongside teammate Sebastien Buemi. Kobayashi, meanwhile, notched his 19th WEC triumph, putting him equal with Pedro Lamy as third-most in the series.
***The winning No. 7 Toyota, which was forced to go into “safe mode” at periods of the race due to a malfunctioning torque sensor, led for only 44 laps of the 371-lap contest. The No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R led the most laps, 128, followed by the No. 20 BMW at 79 and No. 8 Toyota out front for 74 laps.
***Toyota Racing technical director David Floury admitted the Japanese marque had a “bit of luck” on its way to victory, most notably with the second safety car period that followed a repair on a loose brake cooling drum on the front-left corner of the No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid. The car had a lost a minute at a prior stop to address the issue, a deficit it then got back as a result of the safety car, which also allowed the team to conduct a more thorough repair.
***Floury explained: “Two screws on the drum that came loose and it machined the rim. We found after a pit stop when we saw some dust, and we found the rim had been machined, and then we found a screw on the ground in the pit area. We tried to identify where it had come from with a spare piece of suspension. We repaired it twice, but the second time was under the safety car, which was lucky.”
***With Toyota coming through from deep on the starting grid, and the Frenchman saying pre-race he felt the LMDh contingent was at an advantage over the LMHs, Floury denied suggestions of “hiding” pace in the build-up to the race.
***He said: “I was expecting us to be more in difficulty. Qualifying was unfortunate, we should have had both cars in Hyperpole 2, but we adapted our strategy to get back in front as quickly as possible. I don’t think we hid our pace. If you look at the lap times we did on test day, I don’t think they were inconsistent with what we achieved in the race. We focused on preparing the race as much as we could.”
***While having to settle for a runner-up finish, with its challenge dashed by the race’s second safety car period in the final six hours, BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos took positives away from the weekend, which sees Robin Frijns and Rene Rast sit second in the Hypercar drivers points standings, four points behind the winning Toyota trio, who have vaulted from fourth to the championship lead.
***Roos said: “It’s always good here because of the double points. When you have a good race in Le Mans, it always helps you to also have a good shot on the championship. But still, now we had the third race, so there’s still five races to come and a lot of points to get. In the end, we’re super happy that we can see the big progress that’s going in the right direction and hopefully we can be consistently there and fight for good result.”
***Cadillac was denied a podium result after largely holding command of the race, with the two Hertz Team JOTA entries combining to lead 184 laps, which added up to 50 percent of the race.
***Team co-owner Sam Hignett told Radio Le Mans: “I’m smiling with immense pride at what this group of people achieved. The result wasn’t there. We lost 38 in the middle of the night with the power steering. That final FCY absolutely killed us. Fourth was all we could muster. We got Le Mans’d.”
***The third Cadillac V-Series.R from Wayne Taylor Racing, ended up in ninth after serving no fewer than four drive-through penalties for Full Course Yellow or Slow Zone speed infringements, including three over less than a two-hour span in the morning when Filipe Albuquerque was at the wheel.
***The No. 101 entry later turned into a ‘test car’ for the No. 12 JOTA Cadillac, which saw the American squad evaluating different tires, including going to Michelin’s Hard compound towards the heat of the day. “We were kind of put on the back foot early with a poorly timed, full course yellow and then a couple of penalties in the morning, which took us off the lead lap for that safety car,” said Jordan Taylor.
***James Calado, who said a fifth place finish for his No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari would be like “winning the lottery” hit the jackpot as the highest-placed 499P in the race after the car was previously undefeated at Circuit de la Sarthe. He said: “We were hopeful and I’m disappointed, but in reality I should be satisfied because we knew we would struggle in terms of race pace. We did everything possible.”
***Alpine sporting director Nico Lapierre admitted to “mixed feelings” about the team’s sixth-place finish with the best of its A424s in what was the French marque’s final planned Le Mans outing as a full works operation before its WEC exit at the end of the year.
***Lapierre told Sportscar365: “In terms of operation and strategy we didn’t make any mistakes. But it was a pretty clean race, so it was mostly about pace, and in the end Cadillac, BMW and Toyota were just faster. There was nothing we could really do in terms of strategy; there were no big opportunities.”
***Lapierre downplayed the brake and tire pressure issues experienced by the sixth-placed No. 35 car of Charles Milesi, Antonio Felix da Costa and Ferdinand Habsburg. “We struggled in the night with one brake disc that was getting a bit cold but it was no big drama,” he said. “With the tire pressures it was hard to nail it because we didn’t have track temperature like this all week and we also didn’t have much experience of the Hard tire.”
***Harry Tincknell admitted that the Aston Martin Valkyrie “didn’t have the pace” needed to challenge at the head of the Hypercar field as he and co-drivers Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn ended up eighth with a clean run in their Heart of Racing Team-run No. 007 car.
***Tincknell told Sportscar365: “I think it was clear from test day that we weren’t going to have the straight line speed to challenge. I know we were flat out from test day, and it looked good then, so probably the other manufacturers weren’t showing as much. We didn’t have any penalties or issues, so P8 was the best we could do. From that side I’m really happy.”
***Referring to the likely introduction of an evolved Valkyrie for the 2027 WEC season, as revealed by Ian James pre-race, Tincknell added: “Next year we are going to be need to faster in the right areas. The car was great in the corners but in sector two we were losing over a second, which is too much from a raceability point of view as well as lap time.”
***Peugeot Sport team prinicpal Emmanuel Esnault said the team did the “best we could with what we had” as it finished 11th and 12th with its two 9X8s, which meant the marque scored points for ninth and tenth in the WEC as neither the No. 83 Ferrari nor the No. 101 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac were eligible for manufacturers’ points.
***Esnault told reporters: “We are not ecstatic but at least we have the feeling we did a good job. When you come to Le Mans, you want to fight for top positions and perform, but we try to be happy with what we can. The team did a fantastic job in terms of execution as always. We had only one penalty, a drive-through for Stoffel [Vandoorne] speeding in a slow zone. We also changed the rear block on the No. 94 this morning, as we had a vibration. but the car did not go in the garage. The car was very reliable.”
***Genesis Magma Racing got one of its Le Mans debuting GMR-001s to the finish, with the No. 19 entry of Mathieu Jaminet, Paul-Loup Chatin and Dani Juncadella finishing 13th, just one place away from scoring manufacturer points.
***The No. 17 Genesis, however, was one of four Hypercar retirements after Mathys Jaubert sustained a right-front suspension failure in the 17th hour and was unable to get the car back to the pits. “I don’t know really what happened,” he said. “I think the suspension broke on the curb, which was a bit unfortunate, but we need to properly check the parts to find out.”
***Only one BMW Hypercar also got to the finish after an early race incident for the No. 15 entry of Dries Vanthoor that sent it to garage for repairs, which was followed by electrical issues to the car with less than seven hours to go. Roos told reporters that they’ve yet to fully diagnose the issue, although a replacement steering wheel did not solve the gremlins.
***Roos said Vanthoor’s contact with the No. 3 DKR Engineering Oreca 07 Gibson of John Farano in Hour 6, which forced the Belgian to limp the car back to the pits with a right-rear puncture, resulted in more damage than initially anticipated. “It happened shortly before pit entry and in the end, we didn’t realize how severe it was and that we had a puncture and he had to do a whole lap,” he said.
***Michelin, which debuted its new range of Pilot Sport Endurance tires at Le Mans, permitted Hypercar teams to quadruple-stint its tires for the first time in Hypercar history. The approval is understood to have come following the opening stanza of the race, where Michelin engineers evaluated the wear on triple-stinted tires.
***The French tire brand said the “vast majority” of teams completed the race having used no more than 12 sets of tires, despite up to 14 sets being available, which represented an overall saving of approximately 150 tires compared with last year’s race.
***Kuba Smiechowski became the only three-time Le Mans class winner in the Oreca 07 Gibson era in LMP2, with Inter Europol Competition only the second team to claim back-to-back LMP2 class wins at Le Mans after Signatech Alpine in 2018-19.
***The Polish squad’s third Le Mans win also ties them with Signatech with most class victories in the WEC LMP2 era and was the first 1-2 class result since 2017 when Jackie Chan DC Racing finished second and third overall in the race.
***Smiechowski said: “To be honest, this was one of the most difficult Le Mans races I’ve experienced in recent years. I don’t remember having so many issues during a race, but somehow this year luck was on our side and we managed to recover every time.”
***The Oreca 07 Gibson became the first car to claim ten consecutive class wins at Le Mans. Its first came in 2017 by the aforementioned JOTA-run DC Racing entry of Oliver Jarvis, Thomas Laurent and Ho-Pin Tung.
***Duqueine Team has become the second team to officially commit to the new Oreca 09 Gibson LMP2 car, which will debut in 2028 under the category’s new tech regs. The French squad joins United Autosports in already confirming plans to remain running Orecas in the category.
***Lapierre declared himself “very impressed” with the performance of the all-FIA Silver rated, teenage CLX Motorsport crew that finished fifth in LMP2, comprising Adrien Closmenil, Theodor Jensen and Ian Aguilera. “They were unlucky with the first safety car, but they were able to get their lap back,” he said. “They had similar pace to the very famous drivers racing in LMP2. A top-five was the target, and in the end, there were not many DNFs, only one, so I was very proud to see them there.”
***Esteban Masson (LMP2), Laurin Heinrich (LMP2 Pro-Am) and Eduardo Barrichello (LMGT3) won the Goodyear Winfoot Awards via fan-votes. Heinrich, of note, claimed class victory in the No. 04 CrowdStrike by APR Oreca in both his Le Mans and LMP2 class debuts.
***Chevrolet scored its first Le Mans class win for the Corvette Z06 GT3.R, and only the second in a 24-hour race, following AWA’s GTD class triumph in the 2025 Rolex 24 at Daytona. It also marked Corvette’s tenth class win at Le Mans since its first triumph in 2001.
***Nicky Catsburg and Ben Keating were also part of the lineup for the manufacturer’s last Le Mans class win, coming in 2023 in the final year of the GTE-Am class with Corvette Racing. Now with nine WEC class wins, Keating, in his first race back from shattering his elbow, becomes the most successful American driver, surpassing Gustavo Menezes.
***Keating said: “To win with Corvette is really special again but it’s even better to have my name on the side of it. In 2023 when we won with the Corvette, I didn’t have Keating Chevrolet! Now I have Keating Chevrolet so I can put my dealership on it. Hopefully we win on Sunday and sell Corvettes on Monday.”
***The No. 33 TF Sport Corvette came from 17th on the LMGT3 grid to win, marking another WEC record.
***Fellow American driver Gray Newell scored his first career WEC podium result, coming in his Le Mans debut, aboard the third place class-finishing No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo alongside co-drivers Barrichello and Jonny Adam. The team’s sister No. 27 car was in contention as well until hitting gearbox issues late in the running.
***Newell told Sportscar365: “As things kept going along, I realized we were in the hunt and maybe we could make this happen. We just managed to execute a pretty flawless race other than my little pirouette in the beginning, which was exciting. I’m just so stoked. This team is amazing and did such a good job.”
***The No. 69 WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO, which entered the weekend second in the LMGT3 standings, also retired due to gearbox issues, a failure that BMW’s Roos said they’ve never seen before. “The car has already won several 24-hour races; the car is normally super reliable,” he said. “This we have to understand what happened for sure.”
***The final race classification was published on Monday evening, after all cars that took part in post-race scrutineering were found to be in compliance. However, the results are still pending the outcome of parts collected from the following cars: Nos. 7 and 8 Toyotas, No. 20 BMW, No. 12 Cadillac, No. 33 Corvette, No. 78 Lexus and No. 23 Aston Martin.
***The ACO reported a record-breaking weekend attendance of 350,105 spectators, up from the 332,000 people that attended last year’s race.
***FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem made a rare WEC appearance, and was spotted on the pre-race grid mingling with McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, both of whom chose Le Mans over the Formula 1 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix last weekend.
***Japanese entrepreneur and space tourist Yusaku Maezawa revealed in the lead-up to the race on social media that he has taken ownership of the No. 83 AF Corse 499P that won last year’s Le Mans. Maezawa races in Ferrari Challenge Japan as well as SRO Japan Cup with his eponymous team, sharing a Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo with ex-SUPER GT racer Naoki Yokomizo.
***The BMW M3 Touring 24H, which has been elevated to a fourth place overall finish in last month’s Nürburgring 24, following the disqualification of the ABT Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, was on display at Le Mans last weekend, as the first stop in a busy summer tour that will also see it at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
***Guillaume Renard, of Alpine’s PR team, won this year’s ACO-UJSF communication award. The award, given annually since 1994, was voted upon by a dozen motorsport journalists, including this writer and publication.
***Next up for the WEC is the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo on July 10-12, while European Le Mans Series competitors will back in action one week earlier at Imola.
Jamie Klein contributed to this report
