Audi and Porsche were locked in a neck-and-neck battle for supremacy at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on Saturday night, with the Four Rings piling on the pressure in a bid to defend their title in what is expected to be a very tight finish.
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The Porsches had locked out the top three positions during qualifying but the Audis managed to break them up with the No19 Porsche 919 Hybrid, driven by Nico Hulkenburg, passed by all three Audi R18s e-tron quattros.
Hulkenburg, currently driving for Force India in Formula One, eventually took back fifth position only to fall back again after the first pit stop. Meanwhile, clutch trouble kept the No23 Nissan GTR-LM of Olivier Pla/Jann Mardenbourough /Max Chilton in the pits until 15 minutes into the race.
The other two Nissans were forced to start at the back of the grid after failing to the meet the 110 per cent qualifying speed regulation.
Things are heating up in the final hours of the race. Let’s go and check things out on Periscope with #LMperiscopegirl
— 24 Hours of Le Mans (@24hoursoflemans) June 14, 2015
At the end of the first hour, just 7.5 seconds separated the first six cars. Then the factory team No92 Porsche GTE of Patrick Pilet caught fire, with the No13 Rebellion P1 Alexandre Impetaroti taking frontal damage in the ensuing carnage, forcing the deployment of the safety car.
Going into the next hours, the slugfest between Audi and Porsche continued, with neither side backing off. Halfway through the second hour the No7 R18 of Marcel Fassler passed both leading Porsches for the top position.
At the beginning of the third hour it was the Audi No7 (Fassler), Porsche No17, No18, and No19 (TimoBernhard/Romain Dumas and Hulkenberg), followed by Audi No8 (Lucas Di Grassi) and No9 (Filipe Albuquerque) who were fighting for honours with just 33 seconds separating the group.
The Toyotas were a minute back from the leading car.
As the race progressed, the Audis and Porsches continue to swap the lead, the Four Rings having an advantage as they were running four stints per set of tyres, while the Porsches had to change rubber every third stop.
As the third hour closed out a yellow flag caused traffic to bunch up and the No8 Audi got stuck with nowhere to slow down.
Driver Loic Duval dived for the side of the road but hit the guard rail and careered across the track, damaging the front and rear bodywork.
The rest of the car was still intact, though, and once in the pits Audi replaced the entire front and rear in just three minutes.
Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing retired after just four hours into the race after their No88 Porsche 911 RSR caught fire and sprayed oil on the track, raising the yellow flag and bringing out the safety car.
The race was already under caution after Duval went into the safety barrier and Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing’s incident then further delayed the re-start of the race.
Khaled Al Qubaisi was obviously very dejected because precious points have literally gone up in smoke as Le Mans offers double the points in the World Endurance Championship.
“This is racing, anything can happen. It was not our day,” the Abu Dhabi native said.
The Abu Dhabi team is sponsored by Emirates Global Aluminium and Emirates Airlines.
In the GTE Pro class Aston Martin led, followed by Ferrari and Corvette.
