2012 24 Hours of Le Mans
The team were untroubled in the opening hours of the race until a Toyota TS030 Hybrid shared by Alexander Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima and Nicolas Lapierre took the lead.
The Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class was won by the Starworks Motorsport team of Enzo Potolicchio, Ryan Dalziel and Tom Kimber-Smith in a HPD ARX-03b after they led the final 215 laps of the event.
Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander in an AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia GT2 held a three-lap lead in Le Mans Grand Touring Professional (LMGTE Pro) over Luxury Racing's trio of Frédéric Makowiecki, Jaime Melo and Dominik Farnbacher.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans was first held in 1923 after the automotive journalist Charles Faroux, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) general secretary Georges Durand and the industrialist Emile Coquile agreed to hold a test of vehicle reliability and durability.
[10] For the 56th and final entry for the 2012 Le Mans race, the ACO promoted cars which featured advancements in technology, either for performance or ecological improvement.
[17] Toyota's Stéphane Sarrazin was unable to take part in testing after sustaining facial injuries from a bike accident on the afternoon of 2 June.
15 OAK Racing Pescarolo car heavily against a concrete barrier in the Porsche Curves, sustaining a fracture to the T12 vertebrae on his spinal cord.
[20] Separate crashes from Piergiuseppe Perazzini, Rui Águas, Jordan Taylor, Pierre Thiriet and Gianmaria Bruni led to disruptions during the second session.
16 Pescarolo car of Jean-Christophe Boullion spun and crashed into a guardrail at 268 km/h (167 mph), damaging his ribs and leaving him unable to compete for the rest of the race meeting.
51 AF Corse Ferrari caused a stoppage after Giancarlo Fisichella pirouetted and heavily damaged the car's rear-left corner in the Porsche Curves.
The ACO and the FIA applied force majeure and allowed the car's chassis to be transported to AF Corse's factory in Piacenza for reconstruction.
[28] The first of three two-hour qualifying sessions to determine the race's starting order through the quickest laps set by each team's fastest driver began late 13 June night under clear conditions.
[29] The experimental DeltaWing car driven by Michael Krumm suffered a heavy jolt on a kerb that activated its onboard fire extinguisher and the master electrical switch, disabling the engine.
7 entry driven by Nakajima dropped to sixth after Lapierre lost control of its rear and spun into some grass entering the Ford Chicane.
17 Pescarolo Dome car made impact with a barrier at the Porsche Curves and brought out the sole stoppage of 10 minutes in all three sessions.
29 Gulf Racing Middle East Lola car sustaining a broken front-left wheel alignment from an accident leaving the Porsche Curves.
2 Audi returned to the garage so that the team's mechanics could remove a large amount of rubber debris lodged in its right-rear suspension arm and created a vibration.
[50][51] Although Toyota had less fuel economy than Audi,[50] Buemi and later his teammate Lapierre were able to attack in the fourth hour and lowered Tréluyer's lead to twenty seconds.
[58] The DeltaWing sustained damage to its steering arm, powertrain and rear bodywork; track marshals pushed it behind the wall to allow mechanics from Highcroft Racing to advise Motoyama on how to repair the car.
48 Murphy Oreca-Nissan relinquished the lead of LMP2 when driver Hughes entered the pit lane with a right-rear puncture that sent the car into a spin at the exit to Arnage corner and caused damage to its rear wheel arch and deck.
74 Corvette when its left-rear tyre detached in the Dunlop Esses and slowing him for the rest of the lap en route to the pit lane for repairs to the car's bodywork and underwent a change of brake discs.
74 Corvette emerged on the track soon after though it was once again involved in an incident when Westbrook crashed at the first Mulsanne Straight chicane and necessitating repairs to its bodywork and a change of differential and halfshaft.
48 Murphy Oreca-Nissan failed and caused one of the car's rear wheels to lock before track marshals pushed it towards the pit lane for it to be retired from the event.
[71] Abdulaziz Al Faisal spun and crashed backwards against a concrete barrier in the Porsche Curves causing enough damage to retire the vehicle and required the deployment of the safety cars for the second time in the race.
[74] AF Corse had their lead in LMGTE Pro further strengthened when Makowiecki's Luxury Racing Ferrari picked up a right-rear puncture and required the team's mechanics to replace it.
3 Audi repeated his co-driver Dumas' accident from the fifth hour, understeering into a wall at the exit to the first Mulsanne Straight chicane and damaged the car's front bodywork and front-right suspension.
50 Larbre Corvette which it maintained to the finish to earn the team's fifth victory in the class after Pons sustained a left-rear puncture on the final lap.
[4][87] The Starworks Motorsport team was undaunted in LMP2 and maintained the first-place position it had held for 215 consecutive laps to win,[67] earning Kimber-Smith his third victory in the class and Dalziel and Pottolicchio's first.
[95] The team principal, Pascal Vasselon, stated Toyota's pace in the first half of the race was a realistic of what it could achieve, "We were not looking for an aggressive start and leading for 10 minutes.
"[96] Due to the result of the event, McNish, Kristensen and Capello moved to the lead of the Drivers' Championship with 77 points, 6½ ahead of the race winners Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer in second place.
