Porsche won the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2016 at Circuit de la Sarthe. The #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Porsche Team covered 384 laps over 24 hours, a race distance of 5,232 km. The winning crew: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb. The margin to second place was 3 laps — a clear, controlled win. The fastest manufacturer also produced the winner.
How the Lead Was Won
Across the race we counted 6 lead changes among 4 different cars in the LMP1 class. At the closest point, first and second were only 0.5 s apart. For 15 of 18 measured hours the gap stayed under 30 seconds.
That is a real head-to-head fight, not a comfortable lead.
Figure 1 shows how that gap moved over the distance.
Manufacturer Pace
We rank pace by the average of each manufacturer’s fastest lap. That measures real speed over the distance instead of one lucky lap. The order at the top: Porsche (243.2 km/h), Toyota (242.9 km/h), Audi (242.1 km/h).
Between the fastest and the slowest manufacturer in the LMP1 class lie 16.4 km/h. That is a wide spread. At this track, the concept differences show clearly.
Figure 2 sets the pace order side by side.
Reliability by Class
16 of 59 cars did not make the finish — an overall retirement rate of 27%. The heaviest toll fell on LMGTE Pro with 36%, while LMGTE Am came through best at 15%.
Over this distance, reliability is a result in itself. A car that stops scores nothing, no matter how fast it was.
Figure 3 compares the classes directly.
Efficiency Over the Distance
Our efficiency score multiplies average lap speed by laps completed and compares that to the class average. It rewards cars that were fast and stayed out of trouble. A value of 1.000 is exactly class average.
The top score goes to #2 Porsche with 1.176. That is the winning car — speed and durability came from the same package.
Figure 4 ranks the cars by that score.
Night Versus Day
Top-class cars averaged 237.1 km/h in daylight and 239.5 km/h at night. The difference is 2.37 km/h — faster after dark.
That is a real loss of pace after dark — cooler air, more traffic and lower visibility all leave a mark on the stopwatch.
Figure 5 puts both phases next to each other.
The Closing Phase
In the final hour, 82% of the field held position within ±1 place (n = 60). Most of the order was set, but a few fights ran to the end. The biggest single move came from #5 Toyota, 44 places back.
Figure 6 shows how settled the finish really was.
Fastest Lap and Class Gaps
The fastest single lap of the race belongs to #6 Toyota (Toyota Gazoo Racing): 3:21.445 at 243.6 km/h. Crew: Stéphane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi.
Between LMP1 and LMP2 sits a pace gap of 14.9 s per lap. That number decides how much traffic the leaders have to work through.
Class winners — LMP1: #2 Porsche (Porsche Team), LMP2: #36 Alpine (Signatech Alpine), LMGTE Pro: #68 Ford (Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA), LMGTE Am: #62 Ferrari (Scuderia Corsa), Garage 56: #84 Morgan (SRT41 By OAK Racing).
Putting the Race in Context
The winner averaged 217.9 km/h across 5,232 km. On a 13.626 km lap, that is the pace the whole strategy had to sustain.
We calculate the same metrics for every race in the archive: pace order, reliability by class, lead changes, winning margin, closing stability and efficiency. That makes this race directly comparable with every other round of the 2016 season — and with the seasons before it.
All figures are derived from the full classification of every race hour and are recalculated with each build.
