2013 24 Hours of Le Mans

The 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans was an automobile endurance race held on 22–23 June 2013 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France. It was the 81st edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), as well as the 90th anniversary of the first running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The race was the third round of the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship.

The race was won by Dane Tom Kristensen, Briton Allan McNish and Frenchman Loïc Duval, of Audi Sport Team Joest, driving an Audi R18 e-tron quattro. The victory marked Audi's twelfth win in fourteen years, as well as Kristensen extending his own record for the most wins with nine. OAK Racing's Morgan-Nissan won the LMP2 category, while Porsche AG Team Manthey secured the LMGTE Pro class and IMSA Performance Matmut led LMGTE Am.

The race was marred by a fatal accident in the first ten minutes when LMGTE Am driver Allan Simonsen crashed heavily into the barrier at Tertre Rouge. The impact was strong enough to crush part of the roof and rollcage of his Aston Martin Vantage. Simonsen was treated at the scene of the accident before being taken to the circuit's medical centre where he later died from his injuries.

Entries
The ACO granted 56 invitations to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Entries were divided between the LMP1 (Le Mans Prototype 1), and LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype 2), LMGTE Pro (Le Mans GT Endurance—Professional), and LMGTE Am (Le Mans GT Endurance—Amateur) categories. By 16 January, deadline for entries, 71 applications had been filed with the ACO.

Automatic entries
Automatic entries are earned by teams which won their class in the previous running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, or have won Le Mans-based series and events such as the American Le Mans Series, European Le Mans Series, and the Petit Le Mans. Some second place finishers are also granted automatic entries in certain series. Entries are also granted for the winners of the Michelin Energy Endurance Challenge in the FIA World Endurance Championship. A final entry is granted to the champion in the Formula Le Mans category of the Le Mans Series, with the winner receiving their invitation in LMP2. For the first time, champions in the American Le Mans Series or at the Petit Le Mans do not automatically receive an entry. Instead, the American Le Mans Series is given three "at-large" entries, which the series will award to teams interested in participating at Le Mans.

As automatic entries are granted to teams, the teams are allowed to change their cars from the previous year to the next, but are not allowed to change their category. However, automatic invitations in the two GTE categories are able to be swapped between the two based on the driver line-ups chosen by these teams.

On 14 November 2012, the list of automatic entries was announced by the ACO.

56th entry
For the 56th entry for the 2013 running of Le Mans meant to display new technologies, the ACO announced on 2 June 2012 an automatic invitation for the Swiss-developed GreenGT LMP-H2 which utilizes a hydrogen fuel cell to run electric motors within a Le Mans Prototype style body. Three weeks before the race, GreenGT withdrew their entry, citing a lack of time to complete the complex fine-tuning of the hydrogen fuel cell system. No reserve was available for the 56th garage.

Entry list
In conjunction with the announcement of entries for the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship, the ACO also announced the full 56 car entry list for Le Mans, plus ten reserves.

On 1 March, Extreme Speed Motorsports withdrew their LMGTE Am Ferrari, promoting a fifth Aston Martin Racing entry. The Aston Martin was also allowed to change from the LMGTE Am category to LMGTE Pro per request. Two weeks later, Sébastien Loeb Racing withdrew their LMP2 Oreca-Nissan, promoting the Race Performance Oreca-Judd entry from the reserves. Starworks Motorsport, defending champions of Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship in LMP2 category, withdrew their HPD-Honda entry on 9 April, promoting Morand Racing's Morgan-Judd. Gulf Racing Middle East withdrew the second of the LMP2 entries on 19 April, being replaced by DKR Engineering's Lola-Judd. On 1 June, GreenGT Technologies announced the withdrawal of the Garage 56 entry, with Prospeed Competition's LMGTE Am Porsche being announced as its replacement. By the start of the event, only a single reserve entry had not been promoted to the race.

Qualifying
Qualifying was held over three sessions, each two hours in length. The first session was held on the Wednesday night before the race, with the second on Thursday afternoon and the final session of qualifying taking place in the early evening of Thursday. Several stoppages for accidents delayed or prematurely ended each of the sessions, while rain affected the Wednesday and first Thursday sessions. At the end of Thursday, a time of 3:22.346 set by Loïc Duval in the No. 2 Audi at the end of the Wednesday session claimed the overall pole position for the race. Audi locked up the top three spots on the podium, followed by the pair of Toyotas over four seconds off the pole pace. The pole in the LMP2 category was set by Olivier Pla for OAK Racing in the closing laps of Thursday qualifying, beating the time of John Martin set on Wednesday. The No. 99 Aston Martin provisionally held the LMGTE Pro pole position Wednesday, only to be beaten by the No. 97 sister car of Stefan Mücke on Thursday before Frédéric Makowiecki reclaimed the top spot for the No. 99, giving Aston Martin a one-two result ahead of Porsche. The LMGTE Am category was led on both days by the No. 95 Aston Martin, with Allan Simonsen setting the fastest lap for the team.

Qualifying result
Pole positions in each class are denoted in bold. The fastest time set by each entry is denoted in gray.


 * – The noted cars were moved to the back of the starting grid due to not having all three of their drivers setting qualifying lap times within 110% of the class leader's pole time.

Race
The race started at 15:00 (CEST) on Saturday 22 June. On lap three of the race, Allan Simonsen lost control of his No. 95 Aston Martin at the Tertre Rouge corner and hit the barriers. The impact was strong enough to crush one corner of the roof and the supporting rollcage. Simonsen was reported to be injured, but conscious when he was removed from the car by recovery crews, and taken to the on-site medical centre where he later died from his injuries. The Aston Martin Racing team, who had four other cars in the event, chose to continue in the race at the request of Simonsen's family.

The early lead was keenly contested between the No. 1 Audi of André Lotterer and the No. 8 Toyota of Anthony Davidson. By the end of the third hour, however the Audis had established a clear lead, occupying the first three places. Chasing their third consecutive Le Mans win, the No. 1 Audi led Tom Kristensen's No. 2 Audi by almost a minute until a crank sensor problem in the 7th hour forced them to take a lengthy pit stop. Rejoining the race several laps down in 24th place, they eventually battled their way back to 5th. Running in 2nd place, the No. 3 Audi driven by Oliver Jarvis also ran into problems, losing several minutes after a puncture. In the 22nd hour they overtook the No. 7 Toyota of Nicolas Lapierre to claim third spot. Soon afterwards, Lapierre skidded in the treacherous conditions and hit a wall. Initially he appeared to abandon the car, however he managed to restart it and return it to the pits for some quick repairs. He returned to the track in time to claim 4th place. In the final hour of racing, Sébastien Buemi in the No. 8 Toyota briefly managed to unlap himself, but soon afterwards decided to settle for 2nd place.

The race pace was slowed by several serious accidents, bringing out a record twelve safety car caution periods. Many of the periods were required for track officials to make repairs to the safety barriers around the circuit which were damaged in accidents. The safety car periods totalled five and a half hours of the race.

The race was won by the No. 2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro, with drivers Tom Kristensen of Denmark earning his record ninth victory, Scotsman Allan McNish his third, and Frenchman Loïc Duval earning his first ever Le Mans win. It was Audi's twelfth victory in fourteen years. Audi led the No. 8 Toyota TS030 Hybrid by a gap of one lap at the end of the 24 hours, and the No. 3 Audi completed the race podium. Bertrand Baguette, Martin Plowman, and Ricardo González led a 1–2 finish for the OAK Racing team in the LMP2 category. In the LMGTE Pro group, Porsche Team Manthey claimed victory on the Le Mans debut of the new 991-generation race car with drivers Marc Lieb, Richard Lietz, and Romain Dumas, while the LMGTE Am class increased Porsche's total class victories at Le Mans to 100 with the IMSA Performance entry of Jean-Karl Vernay, Raymond Narac, and Christophe Bourret leading the class. Following scrutineering by officials, the No. 26 G-Drive Racing Oreca-Nissan was excluded from the race results due to having a fuel tank of illegal capacity. The disqualification promoted the No. 42 Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan onto the LMP2 class podium in third place.

Race result
Class winners are marked in bold. Cars failing to complete 70% (244 laps) of winner's distance are marked as Not Classified (NC).