Aston Martin won both GTE classes at the Le Mans 24 Hours when Maxime Martin, Alex Lynn and Harry Tinknell took honors in GTE Pro and TF Sport was victorious in GTE-Am.
Lane put the 97th factory Aston Martin Vantage GTE 1 minute 33 seconds ahead of James Calado in the 51st AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, led by Alessandro Pierre Guidi and Daniel Serra, overtaking the tied flag.
The Ferrari trio have not defended the GTE-Pro title since last year, but they faced an intense challenge as the main opponent of Aston Martin’s crew and drove most of the night.
The difference between the two cars was noticed on Sunday morning when Tinknell overtook the Sierra to drive to the second Mulsanne Mechanic.
While Ferrari consistently topped the rating thanks to its driving style three laps behind Aston at a time, the British car had the overall advantage for the remainder of the confrontation.
Lynn had two minutes for Calado as the fourth racing safety car was produced for the Graff Oreca 07 Gibson in the last hour after James Allen’s crash.
The interruption was not threatened by the gap, with Lin halting in the last hole before the slow stage, while a Ferrari arrived later after the race turned green again.
GTE-Pro win at Le Mans
This confirmed Aston Martin’s first GTE-Pro victory at Le Mans since 2017 and the first 24-hour race victory for the latest generation Vantage GTE.
The first and third places also secured the GTE Manufacturers’ title for the FIA World Endurance Championship, with one round of the 2019-20 season remaining.
Aston Martin’s 95th crew consisting of Marco Sorensen and Nikki Thiem, with the help of Richard Westbrook, maintained their top points with a sporadic march to third place.
Ferrari’s Support Team for Machine # 51 was DavideRigon, Miguel Molina and Sam Bird’s # 71, but that car placed third for # 95 Aston and fell off the repair front with an 11-minute pit stop on the car’s rear suspension.
This came after a tire punctured in a Bird broke the car’s right rear corner, making the procedure more complicated than a regular tire change.
The Rigon suffered a painful gearbox malfunction on the final lap, resulting in the AF Corse not showing 71 as finally rated.
Special driver Ricci Competition Ferrari from Sebastian Bordays, Jules Gonon and Olivier Bla finished fourth in the class, albeit seven laps ahead of Lane.
The GTE-Pro quickly turned into a duel between Aston Martin and Ferrari as the two Porsche 911 RSR-19 models first wrestled for previous speed before encountering issues with power steering.
The 91st car, led by Richard Leitz, GianmariaBruni and Frederick McCoyski, finished fifth, 11 laps behind the winner, while 2018’s Bloomman No. 92, Kevin Esther, Michael Christensen and Lawrence Fanthur were sixth with 15 laps behind. .
These were the last of the eight GTE Pro racing cars that were finally rated.
WeatherTech Racing’s # 63 Ferrari, co-hosted by Jeff Segal, Cooper MacNeil and Toni Vilander, retired that night due to colliding with LMP2 Oreca of Racing Team Nederland in the Tertre Rouge.
TF Sport wins the flagship GTE-Am win
Aston Martin Vantage GTE also won the GTE-Am category when Johnny Adam, Charlie Eastwood and Saleh Yulok scored the first victory for TF Sport at Le Mans.
Eastwood passed the streak 49 seconds ahead of Matt Campbell in the 77th Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR, which also featured Ricardo Berra and Christian Reed.
The second generation TF Sport Aston had been in competition from the start of the race and had a particularly close fight with Augusto Farfus, Ross Gunn and Paul Dalla Lana’s 98th Aston Martin race car until that car suffered eight hours later.
A rear suspension problem knocked the AMR rider out of the fray for victory, but he recovered in the remaining hours to take eighth in the class, five laps behind.
As a result, the TF Sport was in the air for a few minutes, while Campbell ate a portion of that deficit for the most recent period.
