2016 24 Hours of Le Mans

I follow some auto racing at a tertiary level. I do not watch every race. I vaguely follow reporting on F1 and some of the various GT classifications. The big race I try to watch every year though is what I think of as the second toughest (maybe third toughest) auto race all year. The 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The LMP1 prototypes are these fantastic vehicles with all sorts of interesting regulations put upon them which require amazing innovations. Essentially in the most recent races the cars have this category have been limited by total amount of energy they are allowed to use to complete each lap which is regulated by how much fuel they can have on board and how much energy they are allowed to recapture into hybrid systems and use throughout a lap.


The technology developed here tends to directly trickle into production vehicles. The hybrid systems become the research and development parents of the hybrid systems we see in our cars and are a hotbed for advances being made. Same for the fuel systems, turbochargers, and so on. Also the innovative new LED matrix and laser headlight systems first saw their runs here.

Basically, unlike most other forms of auto racing the LMP1 category and the money spent there has a lot of downstream applicability to the cars we drive on the road as opposed to say changes made in NASCAR, Formula 1, Indy Car, rally racing (though rally racing has given us a lot of good all-wheel drive R&D), and other GT car racing.

At the top of LMP1 are the manufacturers with unlimited budgets and R&D to feed their cars. It is where the magic happens.

For 2012 and 2013 Toyota was the only manufacturer to take on behemoth and dominant force Audi. Audi, since 2000 has won 13/17 races. Toyota has essentially been Audi's punching bag since 2012. In 2015 Porsche put together a real effort and upset and beat Audi.

This year was different. Audi was suffering reliability issues with its turbos and was not performing well. Porsche's #1 car suffered a water pump failure and finished the race way down the ranking. Porsche's #2 car ran a very clean race with almost no errors or failures.

But this race was really Toyota's. Toyota's #5 and #6 cars, though often switching places with the Porsche #2 car for the lead, were running an amazing race. No major issues. Fantastic driving. And able to push hard and do 14 laps without a pit stop whereas Porsche had to run a much more conservative lap if they wanted to stretch stops to 14 laps.

Keep in mind this is a 24 hour race where 15+ hours of racing can have less than a 3 second gap between first and third place in a given category. So each pit stop (usually taking well over a minute between the pit lane speed limit and refueling, and even more time for tires) is a big time sink. To win you want to spend as little time in the pits as possible. Most lead changes throughout the race, and there was a ton of them, happen when the lead car pits because there is not enough of a gap to pit and pull out before second place passes first place.

What this means is this race, at least at the LMP1 level, is in many ways about energy efficiency. And this year Toyota was absolutely awesome.

Toyota's hopes for a one two finish were lost when #6 car Kobayashi (who was one of the fastest drivers of the race) had an off and spun out on a corner. Still, the car was in a solid third place locking Audi off the podium.

With less than five minutes left in the race, only two laps of the circuit left the then leading Toyota #5 car slated to win suffers a (still unknown cause) catastrophic power loss sending the engine into limp mode and capping a car capable of over 320 kph (198 mph) down the straights to 199 kph (124 mph) allowing the Porsche #2 car to close the gap, pass, and win.

In fact, because the Toyota #5 pulled off to the side to try to reset the system it got disqualified from classifying for second place due to FIA Article 10.15 which states that a car cannot stop on the track with a pending checkered flag. So Toyota drops from a one three finish to a two nothing finish.

Just heartbreaking. It was this amazingly close race where for over 23 hours and 55 minutes Toyota was just that minuscule little bit faster, that tiny little bit more reliable, and ever so slightly more efficient to lose to some bizarre mechanical failure in the last five minutes. It was devastating.

And so instead of being the second ever Japanese manufacturer to win at Le Mans  (Mazda being the first, and thus far only, in 1991 with the legendary and most fantastically sounding Mazda 787B [a quad rotor engine]) they take second. To me Porsche did not win the race so much as Toyota lost it. Last year Toyota was just off pace, reliable, but not fast enough.

Hopefully Toyota will be back next year and get the big win. They should have this year.

All of that said...

Ford made a return to the 24 Hour of Le Mans and on the fiftieth anniversary of their historic 1-2-3 finish shutting out Ferrari (after pledging to beat Ferrari who refused a deal to sell themselves to Ford after long negotiations that incensed the Ford motor company into coming out and embarrassing Ferrari in perhaps one of the greatest US automotive R&D efforts in history). Ford with the new GT based GTE Pro car took first and third in their category with a Ferrari taking second. A great race by the Ford GT cars. And a really cool proving themselves still capable.

And, in many ways the coolest story out of this years race, Frédéric Sausset, a quadruple amputee, raced in Garage 56 (which is often reserved for new technological displays and has played host to one of my favorites modern racing cars the DeltaWing). The #85 car was driven by three drivers. Two fully able bodied and one, Mr. Sausset. In order drive his right arm is is directly connected to through use of a prosthetic device to a custom built steering wheel. He controls gas and break via paddles built into his seat and pressed with his thighs. The car had ABS and an automatic gearbox both adding significant weight to the otherwise LMP2 car. And, in order to overcome the rule requiring that a driver be able to unbelt and exit the car in under 7 seconds his seat was fitted with a compressed air ejection system in case the car were to catch fire during his driving stint. The car was reliable.

Actually, what is most awesome to me about this effort is that despite all the weight penalty, the inability to modulate the brakes because of ABS, and the fact that it was equipped with and automatic (Sausset's daily driver had a manual that has been adapted so he can shift it), the car was competitive. It was not the last place, it was not the last car of the LMP2 class either. And Sausset put in some great laps. In fact the only reason the car ever saw the garage over the course of the race was that in order for Sausset to enter and exit the vehicle he had to be hoisted on a sling and dropped in whereas other drivers jump out and the new driver inserts their custom fit seat lining and jumps in. On the final laps of the race Sausset did drive slower and more cautiously than earlier in the race, allowing many cars he had previously passed to pass him, to mitigate risk and make sure he finished the race. (Keep in mind, due to the ABS and automatic gearbox [turned to a manual mode for the other drivers] and effectively only having one hand on the wheel, Sausset was at a disadvantage in terms of reaction time in a blisteringly fast car and busy circuit with lots of traffic.) With more development such a car might be able to be lightened to a point where a quadruple amputee driver could compete tow to tow in their classification (though with the 2017 change to enclosed cockpits only for safety reason this would make the ejector seat more complicated).

And on this note of inclusiveness... in a world where many sports are divided by sex and disability versus able bodied (for example, people complaining that a double amputee running on prosthetic blades has an advantage over racers with two legs, even though his starts are extremely tough in races) it is awesome to see that motor racing has men and women, with or without disability, competing side by side with nothing barring anyone from taking first.

And lastly, next year to Toyota!