The 84th 24 Hours of Le Mans () was a 24-hour automobile endurance racing event held for teams of three drivers each fielding Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars from 15 to 19 June 2016 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, close to Le Mans, France before 263,500 spectators. It was the 84th running of the 24 Hour race organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) as well as the third and flagship round of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship. A test day was held two weeks prior to the race on 5 June.
Neel Jani of Porsche started from pole position for the second consecutive year, but heavy rainfall forced the organisers to start the race behind a safety car for the first time in history. Once the rain had stopped and the track sufficiently dried, the field was released from under safety car conditions. Toyota, Audi and Porsche traded off the race lead in the early hours until the No. 6 Toyota established a firm hold on first place, followed by the No. 5 Toyota and No. 2 Porsche. Issues for the No. 6 eventually allowed the No. 5 Toyota to take over the lead, maintaining a small gap from the Porsche. Kazuki Nakajima was driving the Toyota to the finish in the closing three minutes of the race when it suffered a mechanical issue and stopped on the circuit right after the finish line on his last lap. Jani overcame the one-minute gap with the ailing Toyota and passed it on the final lap, taking the race victory. It was Jani and co-driver Marc Lieb's first Le Mans win and Romain Dumas' second. The sister Toyota of Stéphane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi finished three laps behind in second, while the No. 8 Audi of Loïc Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis completed the race podium.
The Signatech Alpine-Nissan of Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre and Stéphane Richelmi won the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) category after it led the final 196 laps of the race. Roman Rusinov, René Rast and Will Stevens of G-Drive Racing finished on the same lap as the Alpine, while the all-Russian SMP Racing BR01-Nissan of Vitaly Petrov, Kirill Ladygin and Viktor Shaytar was four laps behind in third. On the day of the fiftieth anniversary of their first overall 24 Hours of Le Mans victory when they swept the podium, Ford won the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE) Pro class with the No. 68 American entry of Joey Hand, Sébastien Bourdais and Dirk Müller. As they did in 1966, Ford's winning vehicle was a Ford GT (a Ford GT40 Mk.II in 1966), and they bested Ferrari to win as Risi Competizione were second with Giancarlo Fisichella, Toni Vilander and Matteo Malucelli, after their Ferrari 488 GTE and the winning Ford GT had led all but 26 laps of the race. Ford USA's sister car of Ryan Briscoe, Scott Dixon and Richard Westbrook was third. Americans also led the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) category, with Scuderia Corsa's Townsend Bell, Jeff Segal and Bill Sweedler edging out the fellow Ferrari of AF Corse, driven by Emmanuel Collard, Rui Águas and François Perrodo. Khaled Al Qubaisi, Patrick Long and David Heinemeier Hansson were third in class for Abu Dhabi-Proton.
The result increased Lieb, Jani and Dumas' Drivers' Championship advantage over the new second-placed Duval, di Grassi and Jarvis to 38 points while Kobayashi, Conway and Sarrazin's second-place finish advanced them to third position. André Lotterer, Benoît Tréluyer and Marcel Fässler moved from eighth place to fourth and Alexandre Imperatori, Dominik Kraihamer and Mathéo Tuscher fell to fifth after not finishing the race. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Porsche extended their lead over Audi to 38 points while Toyota fell to third place with six races left in the season.
Background The date for the 2016 Le Mans race was officially confirmed as part of the FIA World Endurance Championship's 2016 schedule at a FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Paris in December 2015. It was the third of nine scheduled endurance sports car rounds of the 2016 calendar and the 84th running of the event. With the end of the race scheduled for 19 June, the event conflicted with the 2016 European Grand Prix. Force India driver Nico Hülkenberg, who won the 2015 race with Porsche would be unable to return and defend his title, leading to accusations that Formula One Management had deliberately scheduled the race to conflict with Le Mans and prevent Formula One drivers from participating.
Before the race Porsche drivers Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas led the Drivers' Championship with 43 points, 18 ahead of Loïc Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis and a further three in front of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Stéphane Sarrazin. Alexandre Imperatori, Dominik Kraihamer and Mathéo Tuscher were fourth on 15 points and their teammates Nick Heidfeld, Nico Prost and Nelson Piquet Jr. were fifth with 12 points. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Porsche lead with 55 points, 12 ahead of Toyota in second position, and a further three in front of the third-placed manufacturer Audi.
Circuit changes
Modifications were made to the circuit in the run-up to the race. A new entry run-off area was constructed at the Porsche Curves in response to a major accident sustained by Duval during practice for the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans although the turn's alignment was not altered. SAFER barriers were installed on the outside of the first entry section of the turn, marking the technology's first appearance at a European motor racing venue. Vincent Beaumesnil, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest's (ACO) sporting manager, revealed was easier to install a chicane, but following discussions with the national motor racing governing body of France, the Fédération Française du Sport Automobile, the circuit's layout was allowed to remain unchanged.
Entries The ACO initially planned to expand the race entry from 56 cars to 58 in 2015. But responding to an increase in the number of "high-quality entry requests" they allowed 60 entries for the 2016 race. The Selection Committee took steps to ensure the two additional required pits would be operational in time for the 2016 race.
Automatic invitations Teams that won their class in the previous running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, or won championships in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS) or the Asian Le Mans Series (ALMS) earned automatic entry invitations. Some championship runners-up were also granted automatic invitations in certain series. Two participants in the IMSA SportsCar Championship (IMSA) were chosen by the series to be automatic entries by the ACO regardless of their performance. All FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) full-season entries automatically earned invitations. As invitations were granted to teams, they could change their cars from the previous year to the next but were not allowed to change their category. In the ELMS and ALMS, the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance (LMGTE) class invitations could choose between the Pro and Am categories. The ELMS Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) champion for 2015 was required to field an entry in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) while the 2015–16 ALMS LMP3 champion was allowed to select between LMP2 or LMGTE Am. ELMS GTC class champions of 2015 were limited to the LMGTE Am category.
Among the fourteen automatic invitations granted, three teams chose not to accept: Team LNT and Marc VDS did not continue their ELMS efforts in 2016 while SMP Racing opted to concentrate on their LMP2 entries and forgo defense of their Le Mans victory in LMGTE Am. +Automatic entries for the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans Reason invited LMP1 LMP2 LMGTE Am LMGTE Pro1st in the 24 Hours of Le Mans Porsche Team KCMG SMP Racing Corvette Racing1st in the European Le Mans Series (LMP2 and LMGTE) Greaves Motorsport Formula Racing2nd in the European Le Mans Series (LMGTE) BMW Team Marc VDS1st in the European Le Mans Series (LMP3 and GTC) Team LNT TDS RacingIMSA SportsCar Championship at-large entries Michael Shank Racing Scuderia Corsa1st in the Asian Le Mans Series (LMP2 and GT) Race Performance Clearwater Racing1st in the Asian Le Mans Series (LMP3) DC Racing
Entry list
In conjunction with the announcement of entries for the FIA WEC and the ELMS, the ACO announced the full 60 car entry list and ten car reserve list in Paris on 5 February. In addition to the 32 guaranteed entries from the FIA WEC, 13 entries came from the ELMS, nine from IMSA, four from the ALMS, while one-off entries competing only at Le Mans filled the rest of the field.
Reserves The ACO named ten reserves to replace any entries which were withdrawn prior to the official test session. Greaves Motorsport, Riley Motorsports, and Proton Competition later withdrew their reserve entries. Algarve Pro Racing was promoted to the race entry when TDS Racing withdrew their LMGTE Am Aston Martin. Six reserves remained before the race, with a second entry from Pegasus Racing and Team AAI, as well as lone entries from JMW Motorsport, Courage, OAK Racing, and DragonSpeed.
Garage 56 The Garage 56 entry to display new technologies returned following an absence in 2015. Frédéric Sausset, a quadruple amputee, participated in the race driving a modified Morgan LMP2 developed in conjunction with Onroak Automotive. The adapted automobile featured a throttle and braking system controlled by Sausset through his thighs while steering was achieved by attaching his right limb directly to the steering column. The car was also able to be driven in a normal fashion by his co-drivers. SRT 41 initially planned to use a new Audi engine for the programme but later changed to the ubiquitous Nissan LMP2 engine. The team participated in the Silverstone ELMS race as a precursor to Le Mans, the first Garage 56 entry to compete prior to Le Mans.
Debutants Some drivers made their first appearance in the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans. Four-time IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon co-drove Ford Chip Ganassi Racing's (CGR) No. 69 car, although he missed the first day of scrutineering because of a rain delay in the Firestone 600 at the Texas Motor Speedway. It was announced in March that Olympic gold medallist and multiple cycling world champion Chris Hoy would share the No. 25 Algarve Pro Racing Ligier JS P2-Nissan with Andrea Pizzitola and Michael Munemann. Hoy was the first Summer Olympic gold medallist to compete at Le Mans, the ninth former Olympian to race there and the second Olympic champion to do so, after alpine skier Henri Oreiller. British GT Championship race winner Oliver Bryant was paired with Johnny O'Connell and Mark Patterson in the No. 57 Team AAI Chevrolet Corvette C7.R.
Testing and practice A mandatory test session for all sixty entries was held on 5 June, split into two daytime sessions. The morning session was led by Porsche, with Jani setting a lap time of 3:22.334. The second Porsche of Mark Webber followed, ahead of the two Audis of Marcel Fässler and Duval and both Toyotas of Anthony Davidson and Kobayashi. Oreca vehicles led the LMP2 category with six cars at the top of the timing charts, with the Signatech Alpine of Nicolas Lapierre ahead of Eurasia Motorsport and Manor. Porsche also led the LMGTE Pro category with a one-two, the No. 92 of Frédéric Makowiecki ahead of the No. 91 of Kévin Estre, followed by Oliver Gavin's No. 63 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R. The No. 55 AF Corse Ferrari of Matt Griffin was the fastest in LMGTE Am on his final lap, ahead of the second Ferrari of Scuderia Corsa. The session was temporarily stopped halfway through when François Perrodo beached his car in the Porsche Curves gravel trap and required extraction.