Auto Racing: 24 Hours of Le Mans Results

24 Hours of Le Mans

Auto Sport Blog 24 Hours of Le Mans 2008 Audi R10 TDI

The 24 Heures du Mans 2008 happened this past weekend. It was the 75th running of the classic race held at the all too famous Le Mans circuit in France.

It was a pretty crazy race with the race starting in sunny conditions. Then during the second half of the race i when the rain came down and starting making things ugly. 55 cars started the race and only 35 finished. That is the nature of Le Mans. It is an endurance track. A new record was set though. In 2006 the winning Audi set the all time record for most laps in the 24 hour time from, with 380. This year Audi and Peugeot both finished on the same lap, except in 381 laps total. One more than the previous record. It was a great race with three Peugeot 908 HDi's starting the race in a 1, 2, 3 fashion, they ended the race with the lap record setter crossing the line in 2nd place behind the #2 Audi R10 TDI, masterfully driven by Allan McNish, Rinaldo Capello and Tom Kristensen.

In GT1 a win by the Aston Martin DBR9 showed that Aston is eagerly coming back to its true roots of motor racing. Unfortunately the C6.R Corvette's couldn't overtake the 009 Gulf Oil Aston. Although, the number 63 Corvette of Jan Magnussen, Ron Fellows and Johnny O'Connell, finished on the same 341st lap that the 009 DBR9 did.

Auto Sport Blog 24 Hours of Le Mans Van Merksteijn Motorsport Porsche RS Spyder

LMP2 saw a newcomer, Van Merksteijn Motorsport, with a Porsche RS Spyder that had a wicked purple and white paintjob that showed up every P2 car along with a host of P1 cars... Talk about beating the competition.

As a note, the Flying Lizard Motorsports team that Darren Law races for in ALMS finished 6th in their GT2 class. Unfortunately Darren was not driving for them this race, otherwise they would have won their clas, at the least.

Congratulations to the great drivers and teams that made it through. For the guys who didn't make it, better luck next year fella's.

Here is the breakdown of the overall, LMP1, LMP2, GT1 and GT2 race results.
Overall:

Pos	#	Team	Driver in Pit	Laps

1	2	Audi Sport North America	CAPELLO R.	381

2	7	Team Peugeot Total	GENE M.	381

3	9	Peugeot Sport Total	MONTAGNY F.	379

4	3	Audi Sport Team Joest	LUHR L.	374

5	8	Team Peugeot Total	LAMY P.	368

6	1	Audi Sport North America	BIELA F.	367

7	17	Pescarolo Sport	TRELUYER B.	362

8	5	Team Oreca Matmut	AYARI S.	357

9	10	Charouz Racing System	MUCKE S.	354

10	34	Van Merksteijn Motorsport	VAN MERKSTEIJN P.	354

LMP1

Pos	#	Team	Driver in Pit	Laps

1	2	Audi Sport North America	CAPELLO R.	381

2	7	Team Peugeot Total	GENE M.	381

3	9	Peugeot Sport Total	MONTAGNY F.	379

4	3	Audi Sport Team Joest	LUHR L.	374

5	8	Team Peugeot Total	LAMY P.	368

6	1	Audi Sport North America	BIELA F.	367

7	17	Pescarolo Sport	TRELUYER B.	362

8	5	Team Oreca Matmut	AYARI S.	357

9	10	Charouz Racing System	MUCKE S.	354

10	18	Rollcentre Racing	ICKX V.	352

LMP2

Pos	#	Team	Driver in Pit	Laps

1	34	Van Merksteijn Motorsport	VAN MERKSTEIJN P.	354

2	31	Team Essex	NIELSEN J.	347

3	35	Saulnier Racing	RAGUES P.	333

4	40	Quifel ASM Team	AMARAL M.	325

5	32	Barazi Epsilon	VERGERS M.	304

6	26	Bruichladdich Radical	JEANNETTE G.	297

GT1

Pos	#	Team	Driver in Pit	Laps

1	009	Aston Martin Racing	BRABHAM D.	344

2	63	Corvette Racing	MAGNUSSEN J.	344

3	64	Corvette Racing	GAVIN O.	341

4	007	Aston Martin Racing	FRENZEN H-H.	339

5	72	Luc Alphand Aventures	MOREAU G.	335

6	73	Luc Alphand Aventures	PASQUALI L.	325

7	50	Larbre Competition	SMET D.	306

8	59	Team Modena	MENTEN J.	302

9	55	IPB Spartak Racing	RUSINOV R.	266

GT2

Pos	#	Team	Driver in Pit	Laps

1	82	Risi Competizione	SALO M.	326

2	97	BMS Scuderia Italia	BABINI F.	318

3	90	Farnbacher Racing	KAFFER P.	317

4	99	JMB Racing	DAOUDI ST.	312

5	77	Team Felbermayr-Proton	FELBERMAYR H. Sen	309

6	80	Flying Lizard Motorsports	NEIMAN S.	289

Josh from RawAutos.com

Race results taken from: Official Le Mans website

Photos taken from: AutoRacing1