Ferrari have once again won the most highly regarded trophy in endurance racing - overall win at 24 hours of Le Mans. But just like in previous years, race result was not a forgone conclusion, even down to the last hour of the race.
Unlike previous years, I must admit, I didn't actually get to see the race. But I did follow the standings from time to time and, for good part of the 24 hours, Ferrari were set to produce 1-2-3 podium lockout - something that last happened back in 2012 during the "Audi era".
However, due to tight technical regulations that produce somewhat similar speeds for all top class prototypes, and safety car regulations that often erase hard earned time deltas, Ferrari couldn't completely run away from everyone, namely, the #6 Porsche which managed to catch up 10 seconds behind race leader with less than 1 hour remaining.
The "Cindarella story" of lone Porsche ruining Ferrari's winning streak did not materialize, however, and Ferrari got 1st and 3rd places. What's positive is that Robert Kubica, former Ferrari F1 driver who lead somewhat "unfulfilled" F1 career and later suffered in horrific WRC accident, was among the winners, along with two young endurance racing stars - Phil Hanson from Britain and Yifei Ye, who became the first ever Chinese Le Mans winner.
Porsche did score a class win in LMGT3 category - #92 Manthey Porsche 911 added to the very long list of Porsche 911 Le Mans victories. Sadly, the #46 Team WRT BMW M4 retired and we did not see MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi on Le Mans podium, which otherwise looked like real possibility.
GT3 podium was completed by two more distinct makes - Ferrari and Chevrolet. At least Ferrari did not win everything...
LMP2 was won by #43 ORECA which lead by huge margin and even survived late drive-through penalty without risk of losing lead.
Unfortunately, this year, like last year, there was no "Garage 56" experimental car and, also unfortunately, there was not much competition from Toyota, Alpine, BMW or Peugeot. Cadillac did better and won the Hyperpole qualifying but lacked race pace to keep up with Ferrari and Porsche.
