Neel Jani drives the Porsche 919 Hybrid to victory at Le Mans
Omkar Thakur
The #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid emerged as the overall winner at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans by finishing 384 laps in the last 24 hours. Toyota claimed the other two podium positions after the #5 and #6 TSO50 Hybrid LMP1 cars managed 383 and 381 laps respectively. The race turned out to be one of the most closely fought endurance races for a long time.
As a surprise, podium mainstay – Audi R18s managed to finish fourth and fifth after the V4 turbocharged diesel hybrids could not match race leaders. Toyota’s 14-lap fuelling strategy turned out to be a masterstroke. After a strong display of performance by Nakajima Kazuki, Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson, the V6 Toyota hybrid lost power to come to a painstaking halt with only three minutes left to race end. Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb drove consistently managing to put just one more lap on the #5 Toyota. The #6 Toyota finished three laps behind the race leader covering 381 laps overall.
Champions of the 2015 Le Mans, the #1 Porsche driven by ex-F1 driver Mark Webber, Timo Bernard and Brendon Hartley ran out of the competition at the ninth hour owing to consistent heating issues and a malfunctioning water pump.
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