24h Le Mans
The World Endurance Championship is taking a summer break. The next round is on 3 September in Mexico City. In the meantime, here’s a roundup of the current standings.
In the drivers championship, the 24 Hours of Le Mans victors (Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Neel Jani) are on 106 points with a 33 point lead over their most serious opponent, the #8 Audi R18 crew (Loïc Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis). The #6 Toyota TS 050 Hybrid crew, Stéphane Sarrazin, Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Conway are in third place on 62. The winners of the Nürburgring, Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley (#1 Porsche 919 Hybrid) are now on 28.5 points, up from 3.5.
Porsche still leads the constructors championship with 164 points, ahead of Audi on 129 and Toyota on 97.
Nick Heidfeld and Nicolas Prost top the board in the FIA Endurance Trophy for Private Team Drivers on 104 points, which is 29 points more than the #13 Rebellion R-One crew in second place.
Nicolas Lapierre, Gustavo Menezes and Stéphane Richelmi in the #36 Alpine A460 have a comfortable lead in the LM P2 drivers championship, with 112 points. That’s 41 points more than Bruno Senna, Filipe Albuquerque and Ricardo Gonzalez (#43 Ligier JS P2) and 47 more than René Rast and Roman Rusinov in the #26 Oreca 05 Nissan. Unsurprisingly, Signatech-Alpine heads the field in the LM P2 teams, with RGR Sport by Morand in second place.
In GTE Pro, Olivier Pla and Stefan Mücke in the #66 Ford GT are still in the lead in the drivers competition on 72 points, despite only managing fourth place last weekend. However, Sam Bird and David Rigon (#71 Ferrari F488) are now only two points behind them, with Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim in the #95 Aston Martin also hot on their heels (67 points). Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK leads the LM GTE Pro team trophy with a two-point lead over AF Corse. As for the constructors, Ferrari has the upper hand over Aston Martin, Ford and Porsche.
In LM GTE Am Emmanuel Collard, François Perrodo and Rui Agas have 111 points and a comfortable lead over their nearest rivals. Mathias Lauda, Paul Dalla Lana and Pedro Lamy trail 41 points behind the leaders and David Heinemeier-Hansson and Khaled Al Qubaisi have 44 points to make up. AF Corse is currently top team in LM GTE Am, followed by Aston Martin Racing and Larbre Compétition.
In most cases there is still everything to play for so we can look forward to a nail-biting finish to the season.
