Alonso Wins Maiden Le Mans 24 Hours

Published 06/17/2018, 10:59 AM EDT

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McLaren driver Fernando Alonso helped guide the Toyota Gazoo team to their maiden Le Mans 24 Hours win today. The Spaniard teamed up with former F1 drivers Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima to participate in the iconic race.

The #8 Toyota took the lead after an impressive night time stint from Alonso. From then onwards, the #8 remained unchallenged in the final six hours of the day-long race. They led a 1-2 finish for Toyota. The #7 TS050 Hybrid sister car of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez finished a lap down in 2nd. The second car suffered a fuel flow problem in the closing stages of the race.

The final podium spot went to the #3 Rebellion R13-Gibson of Mattias Beche, Gustavo Menezes and Thomas Laurent.

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via Imago

In LMP2, it was the G-Drive Racing’s Roman Rusinov, Jean-Eric Vergne and Andrea Pizzitola emerged victorious. They beat the #36 Signatech Alpine Matmut car of Nicolas Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Pierre Thiriet.

In third place was the #39 Graff-SO24 of Tristan Gommendy and his co-drivers. The Porsche GTE teams dominated qualifying earlier in the weekend and later the race itself. Porsche’s #92 GT Team entry in GTE Pro, with the ‘Pink Pig’ 911 RSR of Michael Christensen, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor beat 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. Ford posed a threat for second in an intense battle around the 13.626km-long circuit.

In GTE Am, actor/racer Patrick Dempsey’s #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing machine was victorious, with Matt Campbell, Julien Andlauer and Christian Ried taking the chequered flag. 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.

Here is how Twitter reacted to the race.

https://twitter.com/dom0006/status/1008355679852261376

https://twitter.com/zdravkost/status/1008355402474491905

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https://twitter.com/Danielvdhoek_/status/1008359586431209472

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Written by:

Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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