LE MANS, France — The 90th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans wrapped up in familiar fashion on Sunday afternoon at the famed Sarthe circuit as Toyota Gazoo Racing won the twice-around-the-clock event for the fifth consecutive year.
Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and rookie Ryo Hirakawa shared the winning No 8 Toyota GR010-Hybrid. It was Buemi’s fourth Le Mans victory and the third for Hartley.
After triumphing in 2018, ’19 and ’20 in the Toyota TS050-Hybrid, Buemi now has a fourth win to his name. The Swiss ace joins Belgian Olivier Gendebien (1958, 1960-62) and Frenchmen Henri Pescarolo (1972-74, 1984) and Yannick Dalmas (1992, 1994-95, 1999) in the rankings of all-time winners of the iconic endurance race.
It was also a third overall success for Brendon Hartley. The Kiwi shared the wheel with Buemi in 2020 after winning with the Porsche LMP team in 2017.
It was a Toyota sweep in the Hypercar class as the No. 7 machine shared by Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conqay and Jose Maria Lopez finished second.
Taking third in class was the No. 709 Glickenhaus 007 LMH shared by Ryan Briscoe, Richard Westbrook and Franck Mailleux.
The LMGTE Pro class offered up a tense fight among Porsche, Ferrari and Corvette.
In the end, Porsche got the upper hand, with Frederic Makowiecki bringing the Porsche 911 RSR he shared with Richard Lietz and Gianmaria Bruni to the checkered flag ahead of the Ferrari wheeled by James Calado, Daniel Serra and Allessandro Pier Guidi.
The Corvettes shared the front row in the class and the No. 64 car shared by Alexander Sims, Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner was leading the class mid-morning when an incident with the No. 83 ORECA wheeled by Francois Perrodo resulted in the Corvette crashing into the barrier.
The JOTA No. 38 ORECA 07-Gibson claimed its first LMP2 triumph since 2014 with British driver Will Stevens sharing the car with Roberto Gonzalez and Antonio Felix da Costa. The trio took the lead in the first hour of the race and led the class the rest of the way.
The Prema Orlen No. 9 ORECA came home second with Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz and Lorenzo Colombo sharing the seat.
TF Sport topped the GTE Am class, with American Ben Keating getting his first Le Mans victory aboard the Aston Martin Vantage MR that he shared with Marco Sorensen and Henrique Chaves.