Le Mans: Buemi victory and Fässler accident 🎥
TOYOTA CONQUERED After the late tire misfortune of his Toyota colleagues, Sébastien Buemi took his second victory at Le Mans after 2018 and the drivers' world title. Marcel Fässler retired after a serious accident. At the 87th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Sébastien Buemi, Fernando Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima had luck on their side. Their [...]
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At the 87th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Sébastien Buemi, Fernando Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima had luck on their side. Their team-mates Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and José Maria Lopez completed a total of 339 laps or the equivalent of 4620 kilometers at the front. A slow puncture threw the trio, who were leading by more than two minutes up to the 367th lap, back behind Buemi's car in the final phase.
They are only added up at the end
Although the winning trio were only in front for 46 of the 385 laps completed, the sixth and decisive time was when the chequered flag fell. After 5245 kilometers (average 218.6 km/h), the two technically flawless Toyota TS050 Hybrids were separated by just 17 seconds. Over the distance, this year's winners had to visit the pits 34 times to refuel and change tires, while their second-placed teammates stopped 37 times and spent around four minutes longer in the pits.
The winners make history
Although they no longer had to win due to their lead in the championship standings, the Swiss, the Spaniard and the Japanese driver crowned the 2018/19 WEC Super Season by winning the world championship title. Buemi's second after 2014, the Spaniard and the Japanese driver's first. For Alonso, it is his third world championship title after two crowns in Formula 1 and Nakajima is the first ever Japanese automobile world champion. Toyota Gazoo Racing had already been crowned team world champion.
In the joy of his second triumph at Le Mans, the man from Vaud was well aware that, in addition to driving skills and reliable technology, the necessary racing luck was also involved this time.
Sébastien Buemi: "It was a difficult race for us, as we could still lose the drivers' championship. After the start, we wanted to match the pace of our sister car, but realized after just five laps that it was almost impossible. Although we got faster over time, we had to admit that the number 7 was better. We are sorry for what happened to our team-mates. I can empathize with them from my own experience and would therefore have been satisfied with second place."
Places of honor for the Rebellion drivers
Third place overall went to the Russian team SMP Racing with the BR Engineering BR1-AER driven by ex-GP drivers Vitaly Petrov and Stoffel Vandoorne as well as Mikael Aleshin, just six laps behind. The two Rebellion-Gibson cars were on a par in terms of speed, but had several problems and crossed the finish line in fourth (Jani/Lotterer/Senna) and fifth (Laurent/Berthon/Menezes), three and nine laps behind SMP Racing respectively. Rebellion is therefore team runner-up in the world championship, Thomas Laurent (F) and Gustavo Menezes (USA) are third in the world championship behind the two Toyota trios.
In LMP2, victory and the world championship title went to the French Alpine team. One of the three Alpine drivers was the French-Swiss Nicolas Lapierre. Unlike last year, Jonathan Hirschi (9th) and Mathias Beche (11th) never came close to the podium with their teams.
Bus after Marcel Fässler's accident
The 24-hour race came to an early and dramatic end for Marcel Fässler. In seventh position in the LMGTE-Pro class, the driver from Schwyz had a serious accident in his works Corvette in the sixth hour. In the fast Porsche corners, he collided in traffic with the Porsche of a much slower privateer driver from Japan and then crashed heavily into the barrier, as the following video shows:
The jury saw Fässler's mistake, which is incomprehensible based on the public TV images, and punished the three-time Le Mans winner with a fine of 7,000 euros and six license penalty points.
Arrival of the women's team at the finish
Rahel Frey, Manuela Gostner and Michelle Gatting put in a highly respectable performance. The three women kept out of all the skirmishes in the Ferrari 488 GTE from Kessel Racing and more or less completed the full distance without any problems. With tenth place in the LMGTE-Am class, just four laps behind the class winners in a Ford GT, they actually exceeded the target they had set themselves.
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