Nickas Nielsen, Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina took the chequered flag in the #50 Ferrari 499P with a 14s margin over the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID of Nyck de Vries, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez, as the #51 Ferrari of defending champions Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi rounded out the podium.
There was drama in the penultimate hour as the right-side door of the #50 Ferrari began flapping rapidly, prompting race control to show a black-and-orange flag. Nielsen was forced to bring the car back into the pits just six laps into the stint, but was able to hold the net lead over the #7 Toyota.
Nielsen’s run to the finish was made easier by Lopez spinning at the Dunlop Curve and briefly stopping on track, a mistake that ended any remaining chance of Toyota adding to its five wins at Le Mans.
Ferrari had looked rapid from the get go in the 92nd running of Le Mans, with all three 499Ps – including the AF Corse-entered customer entry – charging to the front in the opening hour.
The #50 factory car and the #83 customer entry elected to stay out when rain hit the track briefly on Saturday evening, a decision that put the two 499Ps well clear of the rest of the field as most cars – including the #51 Ferrari – had to return to the pits to switch back to slicks.
The race was neutralised for the first time after night fell at La Sarthe, when the #15 BMW of Dries Vanthoor crashed at the end of Mulsanne after contact with the #83 Ferrari then driven by Robert Kubica.
It took the best part of two hours for the marshals to replace the barriers, with the action resuming just past midnight. Another safety car period followed in the early hours of the morning, as rain and fog made the track unsafe for racing, with Toyota, Porsche and Ferrari all trading the top spot.
It wasn’t until the break of dawn that the race went back to green, with the complexion of the race changing virtually every hour as a number of manufacturers enjoyed stints at the front.
The #50 Ferrari made major headways in the 18th hour before the final rain shower, as Fuoco overtook the #83 Ferrari and the #5 Porsche of Frederic Makowiecki to take second, when an out of sync #2 Cadillac stopped to switch to wet tyres.
Pier Guidi managed to hang on to the final spot of the podium in the #51 Ferrari he shared with James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi despite coming under serious pressure from the #6 Porsche 963 driven by Laurens Vanthoor.
The LMP2 honours went to the #22 United Autosports ORECA of Oliver Jarvis, Bijoy Garg and Nolan Siegel, with Siegel grabbing the lead from the #28 IDEC Sport driver Reshad de Gurus in the 22nd hour.
Porsche scored yet another WEC win in the LMGT3 class as Richard Lietz, Yasser Shahin and Morris Schuring took top honours in the #91 Manthey EMA 911 GT3 R.
