24 Hours of Le Mans 2016: Surprise Ending!

If the first 23 hours and 50 minutes were relatively tame, the last ten minutes turned out to be some of the most memorable in Le Mans history.

Toyota had essentially won the race roughly 90 minutes before the end. This assessment was overheard from a famous repeat winner of the 24-hour endurance race and all seemed lost for Porsche until the very end.

There was relatively little drama in the first portion of the race, other than a 53-minute rain delay at the very beginning. The sun was out before the race, but the sky fell on the event just before the start. Thankfully, it came back out to the delight of fans and racers alike and held on until nightfall.

In LMP1, the battle raged on between Porsche and an extremely competitive Toyota as they swapped between the first four spots, with two 919 Hybrids and TS050s in the running. As well, in GT PRO, the 911 RSRs were hustling as best they could, having briefly held on to the top spots in their category.

With only minutes left, on the last lap, car #5, one of Toyota’s extremely quick and competitive TS050s, the one that was in the lead, simply crapped out. It managed to crawl its way around the track, complete its lap, but ultimately, its partner #6 took the second step of the podium after the #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid effectively won the race. Audi, who had dismissed from the top 3 for some time, landed on the bottom ring.

In the GT category, Ford led often and fought a fierce battle to win its category, 50 years to the day after its first win in 1966.

The 84th running of the 24 hours of Le Mans turned out to be an extremely memorable one!

Check out the photo gallery from the action that took place on June 18 and 19.