Heading into the final six hours of the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans in the lead, it was the #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing machine of Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Fernando Alonso that emerged victorious in the iconic race around the Circuit de la Sarthe.
After regaining the lead from the #7 Toyota after an impressive night time stint from double Formula 1 champion Alonso, the #8 remained unchallenged in the final six hours of the day-long race, leading home a 1-2 finish for Toyota with the #7 TS050 Hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez, which finished one lap down after suffering from a fuel flow problem in the closing stages, finishing in second.
It was the #3 Rebellion R13-Gibson of Mattias Beche, Gustavo Menezes and Thomas Laurent that finished in third place, standing on the final step of the overall podium, emerging victorious over Rebellion Racing's lead #1 car fronted by Andre Lotterer, Neel Jani and Bruno Senna which was the victim of an accident on the opening lap of the race.
In LMP2, it was the G-Drive Racing machine of Roman Rusinov, Jean-Eric Vergne and Andrea Pizzitola that emerged victorious, taking victory in the second prototype class by an impressive two laps, beating the #36 Signatech Alpine Matmut car of Nicolas Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Pierre Thiriet.
The #39 Graff-SO24 finished in third in LMP2, with Tristan Gommendy holding off an intense challenge from Loic Duval to the chequered flag, the Frenchman closing in on the podium for TDS Racing.
Having dominated qualifying earlier in the weekend, Porsche emerged victorious with its #92 GT Team entry in GTE Pro, with the 'Pink Pig' 911 RSR of Michael Christensen, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor beating its fellow #91 car which finished in second place in the premier GT category.
The #68 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Team USA car finished in third place in GTE Pro through the services Joey Hand, Dirk Muller and Sebastien Bourdais, earlier challenging the #91 Rothmans-inspired Porsche for second in an intense battle around the 13.626km-long circuit.
In GTE Am, Patrick Dempsey's #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing machine was victorious, with Matt Campbell, Julien Andlauer and Christian Ried taking the chequered flag from the Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE of Giancarlo Fisichella, Francesco Castellacci and Thomas Flöhr that finished in second place and 29th overall.
The #85 Ferrari 488 crew of Keating Motorsports stood on the final step of the GTE Am podium, with Jeroen Bleekemolen taking the chequered flag after 24 hours having shared driving duties with Ben Keating and Luca Stolz.
For the full results after 24 hours of racing, click here.
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