24 hours of Le Mans 2013

Of the 71 applications filed by January 17, the Western Automobile Club selected 56 participants in four categories: LMP1 (Le Mans Prototype 1), and LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype 2), LMGTE Pro (Le Mans GT Endurance — Professional), and LMGTE Am (Le Mans GT Endurance — Amateur). ^[9]

Automated tickets

Winners of the previous year in their classes, as well as winners and some teams who took second place in the European Le Mans series , the Michelin Green X Challenge and the received automatic invitations. For the first time, the winners of the American Le Mans series and Petit Le Mans did not receive an automatic invitation - teams interested in participating in the race were invited. ^[ten]

A team that accepts an automatic invitation may speak in a different technique, but not in a different class. An exception is made for teams invited to both classes of LMGTE, which may switch between the two classes depending on the composition of the riders.

On November 14, 2012, the Western Automobile Club announced a list of automatically invited: ^[11]

Garage 56

In 2013, the Garage 56 project was continued. Any team who wants to test new technologies in the conditions of endurance racing can take part in it. The 2013 GreenGT Swiss team was invited to the race with a prototype LMP-H2 equipped with a hydrogen -powered fuel cell and an electromechanical transmission . ^[12] Three weeks before the race, GreenGT refused to participate due to lack of time to prepare for the race. ^[13]

List of Participants

Along with the list of participants in the World Endurance Championship, the Western Automobile Club has published a list of participants in the race (56 main and 10 reserve). ^[14]

On March 1, Extreme Speed ​​Motorsports refused to participate in the LMGTE Am class; instead, the fifth crew of Aston Martin Racing was invited to the race, who was allowed to perform in the LMGTE Pro class ^[15] . Two weeks later, Sébastien Loeb Racing also refused to participate, instead, Race Performance was invited to the race ^[16] . On April 9, Starworks Motorsport withdrew its application, Morand Racing was invited ^[17] . On April 19, Gulf Racing Middle East withdrew its second application in the LMP2 class, DKR Engineering was invited in its place ^[18] . And finally, on June 1, a participant in the Garage 56 project, the GreenGT team announced that they were not ready for the race and withdrew from the competition, the Prospeed Competition team was invited instead ^[13] . By the start of the race, only one team remained on the reserve list.

The qualification consisted of three sessions lasting 2 hours each: one on Wednesday and two on Thursday. Numerous stops due to accidents led to the postponement and premature termination of qualification sessions held in the rain. Audi No. 2 took the pole position thanks to the time shown by Loic Duvall on Wednesday. Audi took the first three places on the grid, followed by Toyota took two places behind the pole position by 4 s. In the LMP2 class, the winner of the qualification was Olivier Pla from the OAK Racing team, who managed in the last seconds of the qualification to get ahead of John Martin, who showed the best result on Wednesday. In the LMGTE Pro class on Wednesday, Aston Martin No. 99 crew showed the best time, during qualification on Thursday Stefan Müke from Aston Martin No. 97 crew took the lead, then Frederic Makovecki returned Aston Martin No. 99 to the pole position. In the LMGTE Am class, Allan Simonsen showed the best time at Aston Martin No. 95.

Qualification Results

The pole positions in the classes are highlighted in bold . The best time for each crew is highlighted in gray.

The race started on July 22 at 15:00 CET . On the third lap of the race, Allan Simonsen lost control of Aston Martin No. 95. This led to a collision with the fence, which was so deformed that there was contact with a tree on the side of the road ^[24] . The blow was so strong that the doors and trunk lid were torn off the hinges. Simonsen reported an injury, was removed from the car and taken to a medical center. He was conscious and talked with doctors, which did not give cause for concern for his life. But soon, Simonsen's condition worsened sharply, he fell into a coma and died. Team leader David Richards immediately informed his relatives of what had happened, and at their request, the team continued to participate in the race ^[25] .

At the beginning of the race for leadership, Andre Lotterer fought in Audi No. 1 and Anthony Davidson in Toyota No. 8. But by the end of the third hour of the race, Audi confidently led, taking the first three places. They were followed by the Toyota team, whose car number 7 unexpectedly stopped at the side of the road at the third hour, but was soon able to continue the race. ^[26] Audi No. 1 confidently led the race for more than 6 hours, ahead of Audi No. 2 by 1 minute, but then ran into technical problems: the generator failed, which took 43 minutes to replace. After the repair, Marcel Fessler left the boxes in 24th place with a lag of 12 laps ^[27] . While the first crew drove into the pits for lengthy repairs, a tire burst at Audi No. 3 in the Dunlop corner. Oliver Jarvis lost a lot of time getting to the boxes, 1 lap behind the leader and missed both Toyota cars. ^{[28] [29]} At the 12th hour of the race, a terrible accident occurred with the car number 30 of the team HVM Status GP, but the driver Tony Burgess was not seriously injured. ^[30] At the 18th hour, security cars drove onto the highway twice. At first, Aston Martin No. 98, under the control of Bill Oberlin, stopped on the track, filling the asphalt with oil in front of it. Then, shortly after the restart, Andrea Belikki broke his Rebellion No. 13 in the second Mülsan chicane and joined Neil Yani in boxing at Rebellion No. 12, which stopped due to an oil leak and a clutch malfunction. ^[31] Repairing a broken car took 108 minutes. ^[3] At the 19th hour it started to rain, which led to an accident at the exit of the first chicane, Mülsan, and the descent from Aston Martin race No. 99 under the control of Frederick Makovecki. ^[32] One and a half hours before the finish, heavy rain again began. Because of this, Nicolas Lapierre made a mistake in the turns of the Porsche and crashed into the fence of the track. ^[33] At first he left the car, but then returned and still managed to get to the boxes, from which he left in 4th place. Toward the end of the race, Toyota No. 8 was able to return in one circle with the leader, as Christensen had to save fuel and he slowed down.

Numerous accidents led to the establishment of a kind of record: safety cars drove onto the track 12 times and spent a total of 5 hours 27 minutes on it. ^[34]

The race was won by the crew of Audi No. 2 as part of Tom Christinsen, for whom this victory was the 9th in his career, Alan McNish, who won the third time and Loic Duval, who won for the first time. For Audi, this victory was the 12th. The second place was taken by the crew of Toyota No. 8 consisting of Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Stefan Sarrazan, the third place - the crew of Audi No. 3 consisting of Marc Genet, Oliver Jarvis and Lucas di Grassi. Audi No. 1 at the end of the race managed to climb to 5th place. The best of the private teams in the LMP1 class was Strakka Racing No. 21 (Nick Leventis, Johnny Kane, Danny Watts), which took 6th place. In the LMP2 class, the podium was taken by OAK Racing No. 35 (Bertrand Bagett, Martin Plowman, Ricardo Gonzalez), OAK Racing No. 24 (Olivier Pla, Alex Brandl, David Heinemeir Hanson) and G-Drive Racing No. 26 (Roman Rusinov, John Martin, Michael Conway), which was the leader during the race, but fell back to 3rd place due to problems with a puncture of the wheel and idle backlighting; in the LMGTE Pro class - Porsche AG Team Manthey No. 92 (Mark Lieb, Richard Litz, Romain Dumas), Porsche AG Team Manthey No. 91 (Jörg Bergmeister, Timo Bernhard, Patrick Piele) and Aston Martin Racing No. 97 (Darren Turner, Peter Dambreck , Stefan Müke); in the class LMGTE Am - IMSA Performance Matmut No. 76 (Raymond Narrac, Christoph Burre, Jean-Karl Vernet), AF Corse No. 55 (Piergiuseppe Perracini, Lorenzo Case, Derryl O'Yang) and AF Corse No. 55 (Jack Gerber, Matt Griffin Mark Chochi). ^[four]

On June 28, the result of G-Drive Racing No. 26 was excluded from the protocol, since during the post-examination it was found that the volume of the fuel tank exceeded the maximum allowable. Third place in the LMP2 class went to the Greaves Motorsport No. 42 crew consisting of Jann Mardenborough, Michael Krumm and Lucas Ordonez. ^[35] An appeal was filed, following the results of which the decision to exclude from the protocol was upheld. ^[36]

Race Results

Class winners are marked in bold , participants in the World Endurance Racing Championship are highlighted in yellow. Cars that do not cover 70% of the winner's distance (244 laps) are not classified. ^[37]