The #50 Ferrari 499P crew of Nicklas Nielsen, Antonio Fuoco, and Miguel Molina have won the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans, by 14 seconds from the #7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries, and Jose Maria Lopez, who chased down Nielsen in the final stint as the Dane saved fuel in order to make it to the end of the race.
The race began with Ferrari taking a 1-2 early on, with Nicklas Nielsen in the #50 Ferrari taking the lead on the first lap off pole-sitter Laurens Vanthoor in the #6 Porsche. His teammate, Antonio Giovinazzi in the #51 Ferrari, soon took second to make it a 1-2 for the Italian manufacturer early on.
Nielsen led for the next couple of hours and looked comfortable out front. However, it began to rain. Ferrari, having learnt from their strategy blunder at Imola, split the strategy, with Pier Guidi, who had fallen back as the car had a penalty to take due to a qualifying infringement, getting wet tyres while Nielsen in the lead stayed on slicks.
However, Nielsen had a new challenger: the satellite, customer #83 Ferrari, also run by AF Corse, of Robert Kubica, who had taken the lead when Nielsen took a 10 second penalty at a pitstop for a previous unsafe release at his first pitstop.
The two squabbled over the lead for a few laps, with Kubica defending hard. Nielsen had a chance at Mulsanne and the two ran side by side down to Indianapolis, but Nielsen had to yield as Kubica had the superior line.
Nielsen eventually won the following lsp, passing the Pole into the first chicane. However, due to the pitstop cycle, Kubica’s teammate Robert Shwartzman, who had replaced Kubica at the wheel in the yellow 499P, found himself leading over #5 Porsche’s Michael Christensen, who had used strategy and not switched to wets to move up the field to second.
Shwartzman increased the gap to 10 seconds over Christensen, with Fuoco a further 22 seconds off, although this was coming down.
The #83 AF Corse Ferrari led for the next few hours, only relinquishing it during the pitstop cycle. However, during the sixth hour it began raining, with all three Ferraris, of Kubica in the lead, Nielsen and Giovinazzi, not pitting for wets in a gamble.
However, Kubica, with slicks on, was attempting to lap Dries Vanthoor in the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8, misjudged the situation and two made contact, sending D. Vanthoor spearing off into the barriers before Mulsanne Corner, and into retirement.
The subsequent safety car to recover Vanthoor’s stricken car and repair the barriers took over an hour and half. When it went green again, Kubica pitted immediately for fuel, as did many behind him.
However, it had also started raining shortly before the safety car came in. With the rain coming down heavily, Kubica had wets put on his car, as did Ryo Hirakawa in the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid and Nielsen in the #50 Ferrari, who lay second and third behind Kubica.
Christensen’s #5 Porsche teammate, Fred Makowiecki, stayed out on slicks, as did Derani in the #311 Cadillac. However, this turned out to be the wrong roll of te dice, as Kubica and Hirakawa caught and passed Makowiecki in fairly short order after their pitstops.
Kubica then received a 30s stop/go penalty for his incident responsibility with Vanthoor. Thos demoted him down to fifth while Hirakawa inherited the lead.
The #8 Toyota kept the lead into the 11th hour, with Buemi opening a small but respectable gap of 13 seconds to Andre Lotterer, who was now in the #6 Porsche. The gap subsequently fluctuated, up to above 20 seconds and then down to 11.
However, into hour 12 and, right as forecast, it began raining around the circuit. While it was light at first it got progressively heavier, until race control were forced to put the race under safety car, at 03:44 local time, 11 hours and 44 minutes into the race, as the amount of water on track was simply too much.
It remained under safety car for the next four and a bit hours, with driving circling behind safety car A, B, or C. Safety car D, the backup, was also needed as the cars ran out of fuel.
The race went back to green at 08:10 as the rain eased. Hirakawa led at the restart, followed by Vanthoor, Nielsen, de Vries in the #7 Toyota, and Kubica.
Hirakawa initially opened a gap but Vanthoor soon started to reel him in, and had also opened a 10 second gap to Nielsen.
Felipe Nasr, in the #4 Porsche, then went off at the corner just before Indianapolis. He’d hit a wet patch and the car snapped, sending him off into the barriers and hitting the tyres hard, retiring the car on the spot.
While this did not require a safety car, an incident soon after, also just before Indianapolis. Daniel Mancinelli had lost the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin in a similar way to Nasr, except the Aston had flipped onto its roof.
While a safety cart was deployed to deal with this, Nico Muller in the #93 Peugeot understeered off at — you guessed it — Indianapolis. A snatch tractor was required to lift the car out of the gravel and put him back on firm ground.
Finally, the #3 Cadillac of Scott Dixon stopped on track, struggling to get any forward momentum in the car. He eventually did so, and although he stopped a few more times, he got it round to the pits. It was later found to be leaking oil, and was an official retirement.
With the safety car back in, Shwartzman, Fuoco and #7 Toyota’s Kobayashi were fighting over third, with Estre leading and Buemi second.
Derani then also binned the #311 Cadillac at Indianapolis, although he managed to keep it running and recovered it, with heavy damage, to return to the pits, where it spent considerable time getting repaired.
Meanwhile, there was a new face in the lead: Alex Palou in the #2 Cadillac. He began pulling away from Kobayashi in second, but it began to rain again and Pslou’s off-sequence strategy, which had worked so well to keep him ahead of the ;pack, was nullified as he came in mid stint for wets.
From then on, the race developed into a battle between the #50 Ferrari and #7 Toyota.
The drivers in the cars for the final stint, Kobayashi and Nielsen, were at the attention above all else as the #50 opted to put slightly less energy than when the #7 Toyota pitted.
Whilst the #50 held the lead, it was an unpredictable challenge on whether the #7 – with Jose Maria Lopez driving until the end – could close the 30-second gap with supposedly more energy to burn whilst the Ferrari would have track position, but need to fuel save.
By the end, Ferrari claimed back-to-back victories though it was the #50 crew of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen who triumphed at the 2024 edition covering 311 laps at the checkered flag.
Toyota’s #7 drivers finished in second place just 14 seconds behind them at the end, as Jose Maria Lopez was joined by Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries – the latter driver marking his first Le Mans in a Hypercar with a podium finish.
The other #51 Ferrari drivers – who won last year – finished third: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi.
Fourth position was taken by the #6 Porsche Penske drivers Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor, whilst the #8 Toyota crew (Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa) took fifth.
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