The #34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca-07 Gibson overcame a late challenge from the #41 WRT entry to emerge victorious in LMP2 at the 91st running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Albert Costa, Fabio Scherer and Jakub Smiechowski took class victory for the Polish #34 squad by keeping their noses clean in a race where countless rivals fell foul of mixed conditions. But the #34 entry had to overcome radio issues, a drive through penalty and even a broken foot throughout the 24 hours.
With rain in the early evening and night time, several high profile runners in the LMP2 field dropped out of the race in a series of crashes caused by wet and damp conditions.
As rain and nightfall fell, the likes of Daniil Kyvat in the #63 Prema, Ben Barnicoat in the AF Corse #80 machine, Jan Magnussen in Interpol’s #32 car and the much fancied #28 Jota effort all went off the road, either into retirement or down the LMP2 order.
No such issue befell the #34 Inter Europol Machine, but there were other mitigating factors that almost prevented the team from relinquishing the class lead they first took in the fifth hour of the race and rarely dropped out thereafter. The #34 Oreca-07 Gibson outfit encountered issues with radio communication and saw a heroic effort from Scherer. The Swiss driver suffered a suspected broken foot after being run over in pit-lane, with the majority of the race yet to run. This didn’t stop him from continuing to put in impressive stints for the team, enabling the #34 to stretch out to a minute plus lead over the #41 WRT car.
However, a drive-through penalty taken in the closing hours of the race, as a result of a safety car infringement slashed the #34’s advantage down to 20 seconds. As the final hour drew to a close, the #41 WRT of Louis Delétraz cut the lead to approximately 12 seconds as another penalty started to loom over the #34 car, this time for a potential pit-lane infringement.
The second penalty wasn’t forthcoming and the injured Scherer held on to hand the Inter Europol squad a hard-fought LMP2 victory.
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