Le Mans GT: Porsche victory and Fässler retirement
HAPPY SWYZER At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Porsche GT Team dominated the action almost at will. Marcel Fässler fell into an uncatchable deficit early on with his Corvette and retired. After withdrawing from LMP1, Porsche immediately entered four 911 RSRs and twelve factory drivers. Their biggest GT entry ever [...]
After withdrawing from LMP1, Porsche immediately entered four 911 RSRs and twelve factory drivers. Their biggest GT entry ever paid off with a double victory.
After a new GT record dream lap by Gimmi Bruni in the first minutes of qualifying, it was team-mates Michael Christensen (DK), Kévin Estre (F) and Laurens Vanthoor (B) who took the reins early on in the race.
The trio benefited from a safety car phase in the early evening, during which three pacesetters always cut the field in thirds. In the fiercely contested GT-Pro class, this suddenly gave them an advantage of around two minutes, which they managed until the finish.
Porsche let the pig out
The special thing about their car was the pink paint job with the sketch of the meat parts of a pig. In the year of the 70th anniversary of the Porsche brand, a tribute to the 917/20 LH entered and piloted by Willy Kauhsen in 1971, which attracted extreme attention with this daring design at the time and was eliminated in the race due to an accident.
Fifty years after the first victory of a 911 at Le Mans, the second "historic" GT works car also finished second with the former Rothmans livery - without the now forbidden cigarette sponsor's name. In the end, only two of the four Ford GTs challenged them for second place.
Early relapse of Marcel Fässler's Corvette
After nine hours, all six manufacturer teams with nine factory cars were still on the same lap. Chevrolet, ranked fifth in the end just one lap behind, was also among them at the 20th anniversary of Corvette Racing at Le Mans. Unfortunately, however, not with Marcel Fässler.
Their Corvette C7.R pitted for around 13 minutes in the second hour due to damage to the right front suspension. Their deficit ultimately added up to six laps.
Benefiting from even bigger problems of the other two Porsche 911 RSR, both BMW M8 GTE and one of the two Aston Martin Vantage AMR, Oliver Gavin (GB), Tommy Milner (USA) and the Swiss advanced to P12 in class and 33rd overall (from P58 after 4 hours).
Because the engine overheated, the team withdrew the #64 midway through the 19th hour. At the twelfth start at Le Mans, the third with Chevrolet, the first retirement since 2009 (gearbox failure on the GT1 Corvette).
Marcel Fässler: "Our race was over early on. We were able to keep up, but we were never able to close the gap. Nevertheless, we drove as fast as we could and used the time in between with tire tests for our teammates. In general, the classification for Corvette was not so good over the distance this year. Already in Daytona and Sebring we were only fourth after a flawless race and we wouldn't have been able to drive to the front under our own steam here either. The important thing is that I was able to deliver my performance. From that point of view I have nothing to reproach myself for."
Thomas Flohr flew onto the GT-Am podium
He was one of the slowest in the 180-strong field of drivers. But Thomas Flohr, owner of the flourishing charter airline VistaJet by profession, had two fast teammates in Ferrari GT factory driver Gianfranco Fisichella and Francesco Castellacco.
After a nearly flawless drive in the Ferrari 488 GTE of Spirit of Race (a satellite team of AF Corse with a Swiss license), the Gentleman Driver from Eastern Switzerland was allowed to place himself on the second highest step of the podium in the GT-Am class.
A great success that would have been perfect by a hair: Their gap to the winning Porsche 911 RSR from Dempsey-Proton Racing was just 99 seconds after 24 hours.
