Toyota Gazoo Racing was the big winner of the 2021 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, by guaranteeing the “double” in the mythical endurance race. It was the fourth consecutive victory for the Japanese team. Car number 7, which featured Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and José Maria Lopez at the wheel, had a virtually flawless and trouble-free race.
The number 8 car of the Japanese make, driven by Hartley, Nakajima and Buemi, had some problems throughout the race and the best he could get was second place, still allowing an excellent performance for the manufacturer of the country of rising sun.
In third place was the “home” team, the Alpine Elf Matmut Endurance Team, with André Negrão, Maxime Vaxivière and Nicolas Lapierre taking the French flag to the podium.
HISTORY @TGR_WEC #LeMans24 #WEC pic.twitter.com/zgU8tIMNlc
— 24 Hours of Le Mans (@24hoursoflemans) August 22, 2021
Alpine (with no. 36) has always been very consistent throughout the 24 hours, but some mistakes by their drivers (one of which in the first hour of the race) dictated the "luck" of the French team, which afterwards passing one of the cars of the Scuderia Glickenhaus never relinquished third place.
Scuderia Glickenhaus, the North American team that made its debut at Le Mans this year, secured fourth and fifth places, with the trio of drivers formed by Luis Felipe Derani, Olivier Pla and Franck Mailleux asserting themselves as the fastest from both.
Team WRT car number 31, driven by Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi, was the best of the LMP2, securing sixth place overall, after the “twin car”, number 41 (Robert Kubica, Team WRT's Louis Deletraz and Ye Yifei) retired on the last lap.
The Belgian team's double in LMP2 seemed guaranteed, but as a result of this abandonment, JOTA Sport's No. 28 car reached second place, with drivers Sean Gelael, Stoffel Vandoorne and Tom Blonqvist at the wheel. The trio Julien Canal, Will Stevens and James Allen, driving the number 65 car of Panis Racing, took third position.
In the GTE Pro, victory smiled to Ferrari, with car number 51 by AF Corse (piloted by James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Côme Ledogar) asserting itself against the competition.
The Corvette of Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor and Nicky Catsburg took second place and the official Porsche driven by Kevin Estre, Neel Jani and Michael Christensen took third place.
Ferrari also won in the GTE Am category with the number 83 car of the AF Corse team, driven by François Perrodo, Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera.
Unlucky Portuguese…
JOTA Sport's car No. 38, which had the Portuguese António Félix da Costa (teamed with Anthony Davidson and Roberto Gonzalez) at the wheel, was one of the big favorites to win in LMP2, but saw his hopes run out of steam below” too soon, failing to go beyond the final 13th place (eighth in the LMP2 category).
Filipe Albuquerque, who drove United Autosport's number 22 car with Phil Hanson and Fabio Scherer, even fought for the lead in the LMP2 class overnight, but an alternator problem during a pit stop led to a delay that would never be recovered, leading the Portuguese driver's car to no more than 18th place in the category.
In the GTE Pro, the HUB Racing Porsche that started in pole position and that had the Portuguese Álvaro Parente at the wheel abandoned overnight.