The 80th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 80e 24 Heures du Mans) was a 24-hour automobile endurance race for teams of three drivers each entering Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars held from 16 to 17 June 2012 at the Circuit de la Sarthe close to Le Mans, France before 240,000 spectators. It was the 80th running of the event, as organised by the automotive group, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) since 1923. The race was the third round of the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship, with 30 of the race's 56 entries contesting the championship. A test day was held two weeks prior to the race on 3 June.
A Audi R18 e-tron quattro driven by André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer started from pole position after Lotterer set the fastest overall lap time in the third qualifying session. 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. Toyota relinquished it during a safety car period for a major accident at the start of the sixth hour. Audi's other team of Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello became their teammate's lead challengers until McNish crashed while lapping slower traffic in the 22nd hour and providing Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer with a lead they maintained to the end of the race. It was Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer's second Le Mans win, Audi's eleventh and the first for a hybrid electric vehicle. The second Audi finished one lap behind in second place and a R18 ultra of Oliver Jarvis, Marco Bonanomi and Mike Rockenfeller completed an Audi sweep of the podium positions in third.
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. The trio finished ahead of Thiriet by TDS Racing's Oreca 03 car shared by Pierre Thiriet, Mathias Beche and Christophe Tinseau and PeCom Racing's Luis Pérez Companc, Pierre Kaffer and Soheil Ayari. 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 Le Mans Grand Touring Amateur (LMGTE Am) category was won by Larbre Compétition's Chevrolet Corvette C6.R of Patrick Bornhauser, Pedro Lamy and Julien Canal after Lamy overtook Anthony Pons, Nicolas Armindo and Raymond Narac's IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche 997 GT3-RSR in the final hour.
Due to the result of the race, McNish, Kristensen and Capello were elevated to the lead of the Drivers' Championship, 6½ points over the race winners Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer in second position. The leaders entering the event, Romain Dumas and Loïc Duval fell to third. Marc Gené was in fourth place and the Rebellion trio of Nick Heidfeld, Neel Jani and Nico Prost completed the top five after finishing in fourth position. Audi continued to lead the non-scoring Toyota in the Manufacturers' Championship with five races left in the season.
Background 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. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is considered one of the world's most prestigious motor races and is part of the Triple Crown of Motorsport.
The ACO moved the 2012 Le Mans schedule forward by one week in order to avoid a date conflict with races in the 2012 Formula One World Championship and to allow teams to establish their facilities at the Circuit de la Sarthe close to Le Mans, France. It was the 80th annual edition of the event, as well as the third of eight automobile endurance races of the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC).
After the preceding 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, Audi drivers Romain Dumas and Loïc Duval led the Drivers' Championship with 43 points, two ahead of their teammates Rinaldo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish in second place. Marc Gené was in third position with 25 points, the trio of Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer were in fourth place with points and Timo Bernhard was fifth with 18 points. Audi led the non-scoring Toyota in the Manufacturers' Championship by 52 points.
Regulation changes With the introduction of hybrid electric vehicles for the first time at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2012, the ACO and the world governing body of motor racing, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), created seven zones on the Circuit de la Sarthe for those cars to recuperate electrical energy under braking. Each zone was situated before the entry to a corner. The ACO and the FIA imposed a mandatory limit of to restrict the amount of energy capable of being harvested by an energy recovery system between two braking zones and to regulate the capital needed to develop such systems.
Entries Automatic entries
Automatic entries were earned by teams which won their class in the 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans. Teams who won Le Mans-based series and events such as the American Le Mans Series (ALMS), Le Mans Series (LMS), and the Petit Le Mans were also invited. Some second-place finishers were also granted automatic entries in certain series. Entries were also granted for the winners of the Michelin Energy Endurance Challenge in both the ALMS and the LMS. A final entry was granted to the champion in the LMS' Formula Le Mans category, and the winner received their invitation in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2). As automatic entries were granted to teams, teams were allowed to change their cars from the previous year to the next, but not their category. Automatic invitations in the two GTE categories could be swapped between the two based on the driver line-ups chosen by those teams. As the ALMS did not separate between the Pro and Am categories, only a single GTE invitation was granted for their class champion.
On 24 November 2011, the list of automatic entries was announced by the ACO. Peugeot Sport chose not to accept their automatic invitation as they withdrew from sports car racing in January 2012 due to financial difficulties. BMW Team RLL and Pegasus Racing were the other two teams who did not take up their entries because both teams elected to focus on their respective series during the 2012 season.
+Automatic entries for the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans Reason Entered LMP1 LMP2 LMGTE Pro LMGTE Am 1st in the 24 Hours of Le Mans Audi Sport Team Joest Larbre Compétition 1st in the Le Mans Series Rebellion Racing Greaves Motorsport AF Corse 2nd in the Le Mans Series Pescarolo Team Strakka Racing AF Corse 1st in the American Le Mans Series Dyson Racing Team Not Awarded BMW Team RLL 2nd in the American Le Mans Series Not Awarded Corvette Racing 1st in the Petit Le Mans Peugeot Sport Total Level 5 Motorsports AF Corse Krohn Racing 1st in Le Mans Series Energy Endurance Challenge Pescarolo Team AF Corse Dyson Racing Team 1st in Le Mans Series FLM category Pegasus Racing
Entry list In conjunction with the announcement of entries for the 2012 FIA WEC, the ACO announced the full 56-car entry list and nine-vehicle reserve list at a press conference in Paris on 2 February. In addition to the 30 guaranteed entries from the WEC, 5 came from the ALMS, 3 from the LMS, while the rest of the field was filled with one-off entries only competing at Le Mans.
Garage 56
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. Three projects were submitted to the ACO, with the automatic entry being granted to an American group by the name of Project 56 who developed the DeltaWing concept originally proposed for the American IndyCar Series. The extremely lightweight car features a layout that is far removed from the style of Le Mans Prototypes. The project was backed by Highcroft Racing, All American Racers and the Panoz Group. Two other entries had been granted reserve status if the DeltaWing team withdrew: the Swiss-developed GreenGT LMP-H2, which utilized a hydrogen fuel cell to run electric motors within a Le Mans Prototype style body, and the French Courage 0.12 used stored energy to drive electric motors.
Reserves Nine reserves were initially nominated by the ACO, limited to the LMP2 (five) and both of the LMGTE (four) categories. The Dyson Racing teams withdrew both of their Lola B12/60-Mazda cars from the entry list on 16 April, citing a financial difficulty preventing the team from obtaining the necessary budget to compete at Le Mans and a desire to focus on the ALMS. This promoted the 30 Status Grand Prix Lola B12/80 and the No. 48 Murphy Prototypes Oreca 03-Nissan cars to the race entry list. That same day, the ACO released a revised entry list confirming the withdrawal of the Dyson entries as well as the Jetalliance, Hope Racing, Lotus Cars and Aston Martin Racing reserve entries. By the event's start, three reserved entries had not been promoted to the race entry.
Testing and practice A test day was held on 3 June, two weeks prior to the race, and required all race entrants to participate in eight hours of track time divided into two sessions. A second Level 5 Motorsports HPD ARX-03b for Scott Tucker, the No. 32 Lotus Lola B12/80 and IMSA Performance's Porsche 997 GT3-RSR reserve entries took part. Sébastien Loeb Racing and two DAMS-entered Le Mans Prototype Challenge Oreca FLM09s also participated. 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.
Duval set the fastest lap in the first session at 3:27.738 in the No. 3 Audi R18 Ultra. McNish later improved to a 3:25.927 lap in the No. 2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro though he crashed at Tertre Rouge corner with one hour remaining and was unable to continue. He was followed by Lotterer's No. 1 Audi in second and Duval fell to third. The fastest Toyota TS030 Hybrid was fourth courtesy of a lap from Alexander Wurz and the fastest privateer LMP1 entry was Danny Watts' No. 21 Strakka Racing HPD ARX-03a car in sixth. At the end of the first session, Guillaume Moreau crashed the No. 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. He underwent an operation at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire d'Angers to reduce the pressure on his spinal cord and was ruled out of the race. His place was taken by former Peugeot driver Franck Montagny. Olivier Pla's OAK Morgan LMP2 car led in LMP2 as Frédéric Makowiecki in the No. 59 Luxury Racing Ferrari 458 Italia GT2 was the fastest driver in LMGTE Pro and Allan Simonsen helped Aston Martin to be fastest in LMGTE Am. Separate crashes from Piergiuseppe Perazzini, Rui Águas, Jordan Taylor, Pierre Thiriet and Gianmaria Bruni led to disruptions during the second session.