The 2024 season of historic Assetto Corsa simracing at THR started on 21st January 2024 with the biggest endurance race in THR history. An enormous field of 114 drivers from 6 communities shared 48 Prototype race cars from the mid-1960's and embarked on a grueling 6 hour race with two classes around a period-correct representation of the world's most famous endurance race track. Using a quadruple time progression multiplier, participants got a compressed taste of what it would feel like to conduct a 24 hour race.
A huge thank you goes out from the entire THRacing team to our friends and fellow competitors that joined us on track from the following communities:
Cockpit Racing Simulation (CRS)
Revival Series (RS)
VintageAC (VAC)
Virtual Racing e.V. (VR)
virtueller Asphalt (vA)
... and teams from several other communities who joined on short notice
Our special thanks in particular go to:
Gero from the Virtual Racing e.V. community (VR) for making the German live broadcast possible, and to Dennis, Guido, Florian and Sebastian from VR for entertaining the German-speaking audience with their awesome German live broadcast with interviews
Syndicate Motorsports community for stepping in 4 days before the event to make an English live broadcast possible, wherein PirateLaserBeam and King-Kodiak entertained the international audience with a great English live broadcast that even bridged the delay with a hugely creative pre-event coverage, as well as conducting a lot of exciting interviews including the victory lane interviews
All participants and broadcasters for staying with us throughout the 1:42h delay caused by technical issues before we all finally managed to get underway and had an amazing race together, both on and off the track
3DRAP for kindly sponsoring the post-race raffle
ALL OF YOU made this evening special for us!
Yours, THR Orga Team
[Continue reading for the full report on the event with plenty of screenshots, videos & official results]
The venue of choice for the event was the world's most famous venue for endurance racing: the Circuit de la Sarthe, as it was in 1967. Situated in the Pays de la Loire region in the northwest of France where the Sarthe and Huisne rivers meet, Le Mans is the capital of Département Sarthe. Since 1923, Le Mans has been hosting 24 hour endurance races on the Circuit de la Sarthe, whose layout has evolved over the years. In the 1967 state selected for this event, the track has a length of 13.4 kilometers.
Modeled into the simracing universe by woochoo & Virtua_LM, converted to Assetto Corsa by Terra21 and further-enhanced by racinjoe013, this circuit is an absolute masterpiece with a well-deserved seat in the olymp of the greatest vintage racetracks ever released for this simulation: thank you to all of you for all the joy that the fruits of your passion have been providing to vintage simracers from all over the world!
At that point in time, the Circuit de la Sarthe was in its fastest form. Though run almost entirely on public roads, the layout allowed for high sustained speeds that were hardly ever interrupted. The start/finish area was still using the layout that this track had in 1955, when a freak accident approaching the pit lane led to the worst catastrophe in the history of motorsports with 84 deaths. The first variant of the Ford chicane before the pit entrance was only introduced for the 1968 edition of the event.
The lap begins with the long and very fast but treacherously tightening uphill Courbe Dunlop. After cresting the hill under the Dunlop Bridge, the track drops down into a heavy braking zone for the "S" du Tertre Rouge in the forest. Next up, you have Virage du Tertre Rouge - still as a junction instead of the fast turn it is today - to lead you onto the Ligne droite des Hunaudières straightaway. Uninterrupted by the chicanes that were only introduced in 1990, you go flat-out all the way from Virage du Tertre Rouge through Courbe d'Antares and Courbe des Hunaudières all the way to the brutal braking zone for the 90-degree junction that is Virage de Mulsanne. From here, you accelerate past Courbe du Golf into the forest, before slowing down through a very tricky curved braking zone coming into the Esses d'Indianapolis, after which you might get surprised by the fading of your overheated brakes when you try to decelerate again for Virage d'Arnage. From here, it's time to put the hammer down again, flat-out through Courbe du Buisson on the run to the most dangerous curve of them all: the blind high-speed chicane at Maison Blanche that takes you back onto the start and finish straightaway with its open pit lane.
Cars
Eligible for competition were 10 of the 20 cars from the incredible WSC Legends 60s Mod in version 1.0.1. Special thanks to the WSC Legends team of Bazza and more than 20 other contributors who supported the development of this stunning car pack for their amazing work on these cars!
This event was held as a multiclass event with 2 classes that were custom selections for this track:
Prototypes 7000: Prototype race cars with an engine displacement of up to 7000 ccm
Prototypes 2000: Prototype race cars with an engine displacement of up to 2000 ccm
In the end, all of the ten offered cars made their way into the entry list, with the Lola T70 Mk3 GT and Nissan R380-II emerging as the most popular choices within their respective classes.
We are particularly proud of the Infoboard below: Covering detailed information on the participating teams, car types, track, active driver log, event stats, and results that helped participants get to know each other and provided a detailed overview of additional information to the commentators, it can be found at: bit.ly/Infoboard_4th-THR-Endurance
Team Info details: one of many types of information that you find in the Infoboard for this event
A copy of the spotterguide below was also worked into the infoboard above, and the infoboard version of the spotterguide even hyperlinked the team info page of each car to its preview picture. For your convenience, we embedded the PDF version below for a quick glance at all 48 cars. If the navigation panel gets in the way of the view, click the burger menu icon in the top left corner of the embedded PDF.
The entry list was packed with drivers from six different communities. The participants were more than eager to put in their laps to refine their track knowledge and optimize the setups of their cars. Across three weeks of public practice and one week of qualifying, a whopping 10,809 laps were recorded on the THR servers, totaling 140,517 km and thus more than 3.5 cirumventions of the globe!
After a furious late battle for Pole Position, the #727 KamiMazi team's F-104 Starfighter - errr, Maserati Tipo 151/3 - emerged on top, crewed by three frequent visitors of the podium in THR league races: FMG from Great Britain, HappyKojot from Poland, and Flashor from Germany. The lap that earned them the pole position was set by FMG, and you can watch this masterpiece right here:
Behind the pole-sitting Maserati, Kami_Kaze31 from France put the MS Development Lola into 2nd place, beating meisterJäger from Germany in the SG Stern Lola who rounded out the top 3. Adam Celárek put the best-qualified Ford GT X1 Roadster of Side Heart Motorsports into 4th place. The best Jaguar was qualified in 17th place by Hitman from Écurie Orange. Atchy put the best GT40 Mk I into 19th overall, and the best Ferrari followed in 23rd position.
In the Prototypes 2000 class, solo entrant Adam Keefe from the United States put the #77 Northeast Endurance Racing Chevron B8 FVA into 27th overall with the class pole for P2000 and a margin of less than 0.15 seconds over margar17 from Germany in the Thundering Trio #97 Nissan. Carlos Basto from Portugal was the third of only three P2000 drivers that managed to break into the 3:40s, piloting the Nissan of Ramada Vintage Racing. The top-qualified Porsche 906 E Kurzheck was the HiHi Racing entry from CRS that either Riley Gallardo or Matheus Nolli qualified in 34th (8th in class), and the fastest Porsche 904/8 Coupé was the JVM Racing entry from Spain that al qualified in 39th position (12th in class).
Race
English Stream Replay
English Stream Replay: special thanks to the Syndicate Motorsports community for stepping in 4 days before the event to make an English live broadcast possible, wherein PirateLaserBeam and King-Kodiak entertained the international audience with a hugely creative pre-event coverage during the server delay, as well as conducting a lot of exciting interviews including the victory lane interviews.
German Stream Replay
German Live Stream: special thanks once again to Gero from the Virtual Racing e.V. community (VR) for making the German live broadcast possible, and to Dennis, Guido, Florian and Sebastian from VR for entertaining the German-speaking audience with their awesome broadcast.
Start & Lap 1
48 cars lined up along the pit wall for the traditional Le Mans Start
The stage was set for a relentless six hour pursuit characterized by stunning displays of bravery, skill, and sportsmanship - an epic story that should have it all: drama, triumph, and tragedy. A fire-breathing orchestra of 354 cylinders deafened the spectators in the grandstands in sunny afternoon conditions as the lights went out to send 48 brave teams out on their journey.
From 2nd on the grid, the blue #34 Lola of MS Development took command straight away while meisterJäger had to fight traction issues in the green #92 Lola of SG Stern but successfully retained control over his car at the expense of dropping straight ouf of the top 5 on the first few meters.
Impatient to join the party, however, not only drama but also disaster already entered the conversation before we even got to turn 1. Near the back of the P7000 field, the #313 Lola from FHSR-AC avoidably squeezed the #16 Lola of That Sim Racing Team I into the left wall. The TSRT Lola's driver stayed on the throttle and, after the second contact between the two cars, the FHSR-AC car spun off to the right and collected the innocent #23 Lola from virtueller Asphalt II to kickstart a major pileup that also caught out not just the #8 Filière Stars Jaguar and the #6 Intercontinental Racing Ferrari, but also roughly half of the P2000 field that was assisted in its demise by the violently-lagging #11 Ford GT40 of Subcontinental Racing. By the time the smoke had set, the #27 Lakehouse Motorsport Nissan was on its roof, and the #23 virtueller Asphalt II Lola was mangled to such an extent that both drivers had to run back to the paddock to pick up their T-Cars to replace their short-lived primary chassis. Unaffected by all of that, the #25 World Sim Racers team from Egypt started their red Porsche 906 with a delay of approximately 2 minutes after successfully solving a technical problem with the transmission.
Although the MS Development Lola's fantastic start allowed it to accelerate out of Tertre Rouge with a huge margin over the KamiMazi Maserati, that was not enough to maintain the lead. Halfway down the Ligne droite des Hunaudières on the opening lap, Flashor passed the blue Lola from the Revival Series community as if it was standing still, while pulling last year's THR Endurance 4h Deutschlandring winner through to 2nd place in his slipstream: Adam Celárek in the Ford GT X1 of Side Heart Motorsports.
Back in the P2000 grid, the huge pileup at the start had already left a big dent in the action by pulling the field apart considerably. Enjoy the view of the whole grid flying past our stationary camera at Courbe des Hunaudières below:
Flashor's initial lead lasted just a few seconds. From back in 3rd place, the MS Development Lola driver struck back in the braking zone for Mulsanne, and bravely outbraked both Adam and Flashor at once to retake the lead. Further back, the Écurie Orange Jaguar of Bazza & Hitman narrowly escaped disaster by successfully crossing through the apex into the emergency exit without hitting anybody in the process. In the P2000 field, Dennis Hillmann ripped the front left suspension out of the #43 SG Stern III Nissan by skidding sideways over the sandbank, while the Porsche 904/8 of The French Rillettes was spun out by the heavily-lagging #11 Ford of Subcontinental Racing. The Subcontinental Racing Ford subsequently got the black flag after 7 laps due to persistent major lag issues that couldn't be addressed because this team did not use the audio channels provided to all participating teams - preventing race control from getting in touch with them in a timely manner.
Arriving at Esses d'Indianapolis, things got chaotic once again. Adam Celárek in the #127 Side Heart Motorsport Ford attempted to attack the MS Development Lola for the lead but misjudged his braking point. Both of the leading cars ended up on the grass, and Adam couldn't get his Ford GT X1 Roadster, weighed down by nearly 160 liters of fuel, slowed down in time anymore and had to take the emergency exit at Indianapolis before returning to the track in 10th place. Further back, the Moisty Sim Racing #54 entry was the only GT X1 that kept it off the grass at Indianapolis on the opening lap, whereas Andreas Roggel heroically held the #36 Cursim Vector X1 on course after braking sideways with 2 wheels on the grass before Fabian Fabek spun off with the X1 of III-Racing (#31) that then got collected by the #16 Lola of TSRT, leading to rear-end aero damage on the blue Ford Roadster.
At the end of the field, the #43 Nissan (SG Stern III) was limping to the pit lane when the #29 Walmart Penske Nissan stuffed its damaged green brand colleague head-first into a fence, which then recovered only to be collected again immediately after getting back underway by the #63 JVM Racing Porsche.
Ihab Abbas from Egypt avoided the start pileup in the World Sim Racers Porsche 906 E because he suffered a start delay of two minutes due to his new shifter not being activated when he spawned onto the grid
The running order of the overall top 5 (all P7000) at the end of lap 1 was as follows:
MS Development Lola #34
KamiMazi Maserati #727
Gwendou Rising Stars Lola #26
Cursim Vector Ford #36
SG Stern I Lola #92
In the two liter class, the top 5 after the opening lap were:
Northeast Endurance Chevron #77
Thundering Trio Nissan #97
Nissena Corse Chevron #50
Syndicate Éclair Chevron #188
HiHi Racing Porsche #39
First Hour
Having recaptured the lead at Mulsanne on the opening lap, the Lola of MS Development was the early pacemaker ahead of the KamiMazi Maserati and the Gwendou Rising Stars Lola. Rounding out the Top 5, Andreas Roggel in the Cursim Vector Ford and meisterJäger in the SG Stern Lola fought a fierce battle for 4th position.
The top 5 are pictured approaching Arnage within the first 10 minutes of the race
Soon, the leading pair of cars began to open up a gap over the Gwendou Rising Stars Lola that could not keep their pace at this stage of the race, and traded positions every lap. Going into Virage de Mulsanne on Lap 5, MS Development launched yet another counterattack against the KamiMazi Maserati that had just flown past on the straight, and overcooked it on the brakes.
Lap 5: MS Development Lola overcooked it on the brakes at Mulsanne and bounced off the sandbank, sending it onto a collision course with the car that wore the slogan "WE BRAKE FOR NOBODY" ...... before its sharp teeth took a bite out of the Lola and flung it across the sandbank, to where the #25 World Sim Racers Porsche followed it selflessly to administer some first aid care to the wounded Lola ...... before it got back on track where it met its old friend from lap 1 again to fight over 5th place now: the bruised and battered Ford GT X1 of Side Heart Motorsports.
Back in the Prototype 2000 field, the #91 Nissan R380-II had been entered on short notice as the 4th entry of the SG Stern team from Germany. After witnessing dozens of practice accidents by the primary #43 Nissan crew of the team, the SG Stern Simracing division leader Alexander Belthle had taken matters into his own hands and stiched together a slightly scruffy but ultimately functioning race car using parts from all of the wrecked chassis that had been produced by the #43 crew. Although the resulting black #91 Nissan was a rough-looking parts bin that wasn't backed by any sponsors, Max Florenz proved its potential by qualifying it ahead of both of their in-class team mates. He also caught a good start that allowed him to slowly climb up the ranks during the opening laps.
Going into lap 6, he was already running in 5th place within the P2000 class and chasing down the Nissena Corse #50 Chevron when a slightly too ambitious run through Virage du Tertre Rouge caught him out. After skidding against the sandbank a tad too hard on exit, he couldn't pull the car to the right in time anymore and violently crashed it into the trees and haybales but miraculously escaped unharmed. After getting the car out of the way and assessing the extent of the major suspension and chassis damage that resulted in a severe misalignement on three wheels, Florenz was instantly aware that the handful of useable wreck-retrieved second-hand spares that were still leftover and allocated to the #91 wasn't going to be enough to get this car back on the road. Disappointed about the early retirement, he then walked through the underpass and entered the Le Tertre Rouge restaurant to order a bottle of wine and forget about this race as quickly as possible.
Lap 6: meisterJäger outbrakes Andreas Roggel at Mulsanne to capture 3rd place for SG SternAlthough their Jaguar XJ13 roadsters were outpaced by most of the competition, Écurie Orange from the Netherlands (Bazza & Hitman) and the involuntary solo driver Romain Pichon from France (Filière Stars) put on a fantastic show for the spectators with a spectacularly long and fair duel. [Picture by Nopitch]Low sun at Courbe du Golf shows Lexord in the Gwendou Rising Stars #26 leading a Lola 3-way fight for 2nd place, with the Fords of Side Heart Motorsports & Cursim Vector lurking just outside of striking distance...... until the Esses d'Indianapolis caught out Celárek for the second time. This time, the Side Heart Motorsports roadster spun into the wall before resuming the race in 6th position.
The next tragedy in the Prototype 2000 class was just around the corner. Having gotten caught up in the start pileup, the #51 Nissan of Ramada Vintage Racing from Portugal had fought its way back into the top 5 in class and was battling for 4th in class against the #50 Chevron of Nissena Corse from Sicily after 45 minutes. While the two were alongside each other on the front straight, the #22 Lola from virtueller Asphalt I passed them 3-wide very close to the pit lane surface, and pulled to the left again too early. This sent the Chevron into the Nissan, and both of them violently crashed into the pit lane. There, the Portuguese Nissan caught the wall at such an unfortunate angle that it was launched into a series of violent end-over-end flips that took it across the race track and beyond the retaining wall of Courbe Dunlop, before the destroyed Nissan came to rest between the fence and the main grandstands.
Meanwhile, Vittorio Rubino in the Nissena Corse Chevron tried to get his car moving in to the right direction again but had become completely disoriented in this horrendous accident. While he maneuvered across the track twice, several competitors managed to narrowly miss the Chevron but drivers continued to arrive at the scene of the accident at 250 km/h or more. That luck eventually ran out when Rubino, still disoriented and unaware of the traffic, backed it straight into the path of the #944 Porsche 906 E of CAF piloted by Felix789 from Serbia (winner of the 2022 THR 2.4 Heures du Mans) who violently T-boned and launched the unfortunate Italian's Chevron high up into the evening sky before Rubino sent his heartfelt apologies to the CAF team.
Lakehouse Motorsport's Nissan had to be towed back to the pits after Torsten Behle suffered this major accident at Indianapolis after an hour but they soldiered on after their team managed to repair their carAfter busting the front suspension, the French Rillettes #95 Porsche 904/8 laid down a smokescreen all over the Ligne droite des Hunaudières while limping back to the pits. The #12 Ford GT40 Mk 1 of the Aggressive Snails (Mark Johnson, Max Solmyr & Stefan Lagodin) is also captured here, speeding past en route to its 15th place finish.The Prototype 2000 pole sitter Adam Keefe opened up a class lead of 12.5 seconds in the first hour.Margar17 in the Thundering Trio Nissan did his best to chase Keefe and solidified 2nd in class ...... with a margin of nearly 45 seconds over the Sagliss Nissan that was running 3rd in P2000 ahead of CAF.
Overall top 5 after Hour 1:
KamiMazi #727
MS Development #34 +5.9s
Gwendou Rising Stars #26 +3.7s
SG Stern I #92 +1.1s
Cursim Vector #34 +3.0s
Prototypes 2000 Top 5 after Hour 1:
Northeast Endurance #77
Thundering Trio #97 +12.4s
RS Sagliss #41 +43.6s
CAF #944 +5.6s
Syndicate Eclair #188 +11.9s
Second Hour
Going into the second hour, the MS Development Lola was beginning to shake off the other two Lolas in its pursuit of the leading KamiMazi Maserati. A small error on the brakes by the Gwendou Rising Stars Lola at Indianapolis allowed meisterJäger in the SG Stern car to attack him on the run to Arnage, but the white Lola prevailed. The quartet of Ford Roadsters in the P7000 class was decimated quite heavily during this period of the race, when three of them suffered major accidents at Maison Blanche, whereby both of the all-German X1 crews lost their chances of a Top 5 finish. They weren't be the only casualties of the second hour, though, which accumulated more retirements than the other phases of the race.
Battle for 3rd at the start of the second hour between Gwendou Rising Stars #26, SG Stern #92, and Cursim Vector #36Full commitment: Andreas Roggel in the #36 Ford GT X1 Roadster of Cursim Vector chased meisterJäger's #92 Lola through Maison Blanche ...... before falling victim to a horrendous freak accident by hitting a gate post on the fence, completely obliterating his car after 1:09h and forcing him to tow back to the pits because the impact knocked out the engine. Although Cursim Vector lost more than 1.5 laps in this accident, they resumed the race after this shock: Andreas Roggel and Max Scheidter finished the race in 8th position.Just one lap later, the Side Heart Motorsports Ford of Adam Celárek performed a near carbon copy of the devastating accident suffered by the Cursim Vector car on the previous lap, but huge luck allowed Celárek to carry on for another lap before he brought it in for a premature first pit stop to repair, refuel and take new tires. Would that allow them to get to the end without having to insert a late splash & dash, though?The next catastrophe for Ford followed shortly thereafter, when Fabian Fabek also lost control and crashed violently at Maison Blanche behind the wheel of III-Racing's GT X1 Roadster, ripping the front suspension out of the chassis.With his seven litre engine still running and the hazard lights turned on, Fabek then frantically tried to get his smoking Ford back into the pit lane for a driver swap and repairs, but he may have overestimated the sustainable speed of this wreck.Just as he began to decelerate for the pit entrance, his car veered off the tarmac to the right, and headed straight for a sandbank ...... which launched the III-Racing Ford high up into the air ...... before it fell into the underpass below the pit entrance! With their experimental lightweight aluminium chassis bent like a banana and facing difficulties to find the path back to the pit entrance from there without forcibly going down by at least a lap, Fabek and Müller reluctantly retired on the spot.The Ferrari crowd showed a brief sign of relief and began to recover their 1966 Le Mans trauma after learning about the major accidents that took two Fords out of contention for the top 5, but their hopes were quickly clubbed as well when Juho Koski from Finland behind the wheel of the Intercontinental Racing #6 entry suffered a corner exit tankslapper before making rough contact with the haybales in front of the Le Tertre Rouge restaurant.After coming to rest on the opposite side of the road, it was a long and tiring fight to limp this bent car back to the pit lane ...... but he eventually made it there. Regrettably, the Intercontinental Racing mechanics then declared the car a total loss and brought down the curtain on the race of Juho Koski, Byron Thompson, and Christian Tennariello.The #95 entry of The French Rillettes (Ferd1 & LeCompte) in psychedelic "hippie" colours had a troublesome start into the race for which they had already taken great efforts to facilitate the participation at all. To overcome each other's hardware issues, LeCompte transported his powerful PC to Ferd1's location to jointly use it on Ferd1's access to a stable Ethernet connection. Regrettably, they lost a lot of ground from getting caught up in two accidents on the opening lap and in another major accident in the opening hour that had made them lay a smokescreen all over the track. It still got worse for them! After just under a quarter of the race duration, they had a huge accident with multiple rollovers after launching their Porsche 904/8 over a sandbank just before Maison Blanche, and that was the end of the line for their race.
This was also the period during which the battle for overall glory began to move to the strategic phase of the race. With each team only being required to perform two 3-minute-LongStops during the 6 hour race and having the freedom to use normal pit stops for their remaining tire & fuel needs, it was up to the participants themselves to determine when to perform those longstops. Most of the leading cars used their first scheduled pit stops to perform their first long stops, but SG Stern I and Side Heart Motorsports decided otherwise and performed a regular pit stop for new tires and a full refill of the fuel tank instead.
As a result, meisterJäger in SG Stern's Lola T70 Mk 3 GT in dark green and black with golden pinstripes and rims advanced into the lead for the first time, while Adam Celárek did his best to make up for his errors during the first stint by hunting meisterJäger in the freshly-repaired Side Heart Motorsports Ford. Behind them, a couple of new faces arrived in the Top 5.
Battle for 3rd: after the first round of pit stops, Swiss routinier Rolf Biber in the #59 Overdrive Racing Lola is pictured attacking around the outside at Mulsanne but David Nacsádi in the #496 Syndicate x Bottling Motorsport car stayed ahead before traffic pulled them apart again for a whileWith Biber's Overdrive Racing Lola all over his rear view mirror again 20 minutes later, David Nacsádi speeded through the well-illuminated Maison Blanche section ...... but this time, the Swiss Lola's attack ended for good after Rolf Biber clipped the right side wall at Maison Blanche and then violently slammed into the left wall, forcing him to pit for suspension repairs. Both of these Lolas later ran into technical difficulties during their driver swaps, which threw them out of the top 10.Overdrive Racing's misfortune at Maison Blanche allowed Tyler van Beek to move up into 4th position overall behind the wheel of the Plebian Racing Lola that he shared with Daniel Taberner. Their car wore plenty of green and yellow evidence of having crashed into a Team Lotus paint shop prior to bringing their car to Le Mans. Next in line, the first of the early Longstoppers was already in the Top 5, with HappyKojot from Poland having taken over the #727 KamiMazi car from Flashor during their first pit stop.Following a spin at Indianapolis, the blue #29 Nissan of the Walmart Penske team turns the car around successfully but then, the driver doesn't straighten out the steering quickly enough, driving it straight into the path of the #313 Lola of FHSR-AC Racing Team, piloted by "Norinder" and "Widdows", whose similarities to real-world drivers of blue and yellow Lolas from the 1960s are surely pure coincidence. 😉 The FHSR-AC Lola violently impacted the trees on the right and spun back towards the track, while the #29 Nissan suffered a network disconnect from the race server within a second of its collision with the Lola, leading the Walmart Penske car to be towed back to the pits. After failing to apply the brakes at the end of its spins, the FHSR-AC Lola coasted into the forest again where the driver subsequently got lost and stuck, having to call a tow truck back to the pits. Although the FHSR-AC Lola later left the pits again to check if all systems were repaired successfully at the end of the 3rd hour, they effectively abandoned their race after this accident.Nightly battle between two Chevron drivers from Germany: Adrian Sprung in the #42 SG Stern entry and Akashic in the Syndicate Éclair #188 car put on a great show for the spectators while fighting for 29th overall and 7th within the Prototype 2000 class after two hours
Top 5 after two hours:
SG Stern I #92
Side Heart Motorsport #127 +4.9s
Syndicate x Bottling Motorsport #496 +26.2s
Plebian Racing #78 +21.8s
KamiMazi #727 +9.1s
Top 5 in Class P2000 after two hours:
Northeast Endurance #77
Thundering Trio #97 +11.6s
RS Sagliss #41 +56.4s
Ramada Vintage Racing #51 +7.7s
HiHi Racing #39 +9.3s
Third Hour
Going into the third hour of the race, Adam Celárek in the #127 Ford did his best to catch up and bring the fight for the lead to meisterJäger in the #92 Lola - and what a fight it would become! Huge drama unfolded in the P2000 class as well during this darkest hour of the night.
Coming into Indianapolis, the P2000 class leader Adam Keefe lost control of his #77 Chevron.After impacting a gate post on the right wall, his car rebounded back onto the track and straight into the path of the #22 virtueller Asphalt Lola, the #29 Walmart Penske Nissan, and the #97 Thundering Trio Nissan that had been taken over by pitman from margar17 after he had given chase to Keefe's leading Chevron for 2 hours and kept it just outside of striking distance.Without any chance to escape, António Monteiro in the first of two Lolas from the virtueller Asphalt community was the first to hit Keefe's Chevron, kicking it to the right and therefore straight into the path of Niclas Albrecht in the #29 Walmart Penske Nissan, who had just recently gotten back on the road after their car's earlier accident & disconnect during the 2nd hour.After impacting Keefe's Chevron that had to limp back to the pits from here with severe rear suspension damage, the incredibly unlucky blue #29 Nissan emerged upside down and airborne between the Northeast Endurance Chevron and the Thundering Trio Nissan, whose cabin headbutted the front fender of the unfortunate #29 car before Walmart Penske came to rest upside down in Indianapolis and had to be towed back to the pits yet again. Undeterred by the pain from being hit in the head by another car, pitman soldiered on in the Thundering Trio Nissan - those drivers really must have been built different back in the day!Real impact for fake-MartiniRacing #299 from the Netherlands after overbraking and locking up the rear wheels while arriving at Virage de Mulsanne during the third hourGeorge Lanfear in 1UP Sim Racing's #4 Ford GT40 Mk 1 goes through while the white mid-engined Porsche with a 2 liter flat-8 engine gets back underway with a slightly bashed nose lidMere minutes after getting his Nissan off the tow truck and back on its wheels, Niclas Albrecht had another huge moment with a high-speed spin that took his car through the stream next to the bridge leading into Maison Blanche, before the #29 Walmart Penske crew threw in the towel. Lakehouse Motorsport's #27 was able to avoid crashing into their car but suffered an Assetto Corsa client crash before proceeding to 33rd overall and 12th in class.With his Side Heart Motorsports Ford back in familiar scratched-up condition again after contacting the wall at Courbe Dunlop while evading a poorly executed pit exit by a Nissan driver during the second hour, Celárek successfully caught up to and conquered the lead from meisterJäger's SG Stern Lola at Mulsanne after 2.5 hours ...... and evidently used enough throttle to avoid stalling the engine while accelerating out of that turn!At the exit of Arnage, he added another flamboyant recipe to his cookbook for tyres.Écurie Orange briefly terrified the guests of restaurant Le Tertre Rouge by skidding over the sandbank towards it but got only lightly bumped into the wall with the left tail light before getting back underway.meisterJäger eventually caught a good run on Adam to attack him for the lead on the Ligne Droite des Hunaudières, but the Side Heart Motorsports Ford driver immediately launched a successful counterattack into Virage de Mulsanne where he locked up the brakes and casted plenty of smoke over the SG Stern LolaFull commitment and risky lapping in the battle for the lead on the Ligne droite des HunaudièresAfter a double stint in the #127 Side Heart Motorsports Ford GT X1 Roadster, Adam Celárek pitted from the lead of the race to hand the car over to his co-driver. This briefly gave the lead back to meisterJäger who carried on for two more laps with a 45 second margin over the Bottling Motorsports Lola before his spotless double stint in the #92 SG Stern Lola was also over.The #127 was now taken over by Rueben Souders from the United States who tried as hard as he could to keep the Side Heart Motorsports Ford ahead of the SG Stern Lola, but two minor wall taps and unlucky timing while lapping the #7 Ferrari cost him time during his first two laps after he emerged from the pits.Having taken over the #92 Lola of SG Stern after meisterJäger had delivered a last pair of rapid laps on his way into the pits prior to handing over the car, Valentin Knechtel emerged on track in 3rd overall with a 5 second advantage over the Side Heart Motorsports Ford. Knechtel also had some difficulties finding his rhythm on his out lap, and promptly outbraked himself on cold tires before bumping his dark green Lola into the wall at the "S" du Tertre Rouge while attempting to stay ahead of the lapped Overdrive Lola, and outbraked himself again while trying to lap it at Mulsanne. After Arnage, the Overdrive driver waved him through.
By the halfway point of the race, most of the cars in the top 5 had completed their first Long Stop. The Maserati of KamiMazi was back in the lead with an enormous lead of more than a minute over the MS Development Lola, which had earned itself a 36 second advantage over SG Stern I & Side Heart Motorsports. Both of them were soon going to be due for further pit stops, though.
HiHi Racing's Porsche 906 art car battled against the Sagliss Nissan for 3rd in the P2000 class but the Nissan of Kent LeFredge and Lokopixo was faster at this stage of the race and began to pull away
In the Prototype 2000 class, the diverging strategy of the Thundering Trio who aimed to split the driving time as evenly as possible between its three drivers at the expense of two additional splash & dash pit stops began to take its toll, allowing Adam Keefe to open up a lead of 50 seconds at the halfway point of the race.
Running order after 3 hours in the overall top 5:
KamiMazi #727
MS Development #34 +61.0s
SG Stern I #92 +36.2s
Side Heart Motorsports +5.1s
Gwendou Rising Stars #26 +38.1
Top 5 of the Prototype 2000 class after 3 hours:
Northeast Endurance #77
Thundering Trio #97 +50.9s
RS Sagliss #41 +77.8s
HiHi Racing #39 +2.5s
CAF #944 +61.5s
Fourth Hour
At the halfway point of the race, most of the two-driver crews had finished performing their driver swaps and went back out on the road. For some teams, it went horribly wrong. The MS Development Lola pulled into the pits soon after the halfway point of the race for its next regular pit stop. Soon thereafter, the KamiMazi Maserati was next in line for its second Longstop as well, handing the lead back to the SG Stern Lola.
Huge drama in the pits for the Syndicate x Bottling Motorsport #496: after a strong double stint throughout the first half of the race by David Nacsádi from Hungary who drove the green and grey Lola into top 5, the input controls of Shane Power didn't work. By the time he made it out of the pits successfully two rejoin procedures later, they had lost nearly two laps and their race only went further downhill from there: in the end, his fellow Irishman Forrest McCormack brought the car across the line in 20th position.The #98 Porsche 906 E Kurzheck driven by Stefan Roess for the GPLRACER team got out of shape at Maison Blanche, leading to a massive rollover after impacting the wall on the left, while Knechtel's leading #92 SG Stern Lola in the background made it past the scene of this accident unharmed.The massive rollover of Roess was too much for the physics engine of Assetto Corsa, leading to the front wheels of the GPLRACER Porsche spinning backwards uncontrollably and making it crawl back out on track slowly, where the Écurie Orange Jaguar piled into it at more than 200 km/h after having moved out of the slipstream of the high-tailed Overdrive Racing Lola in the most unfortunate moment possible.Unlike the Porsche that required a tow truck, the Jaguar's driver was able to limp his car back to the pits successfully after this huge accident, with its hazard lights turned on to warn drivers behind of the damaged and limping car. However, this would not be the only major Jaguar accident at Maison Blanche during the fourth hour of the race.Fatigue eventually took its toll on involuntary solo driver Romain Pichon, who added the #8 Filière Stars entry to the list of cars that violently crashed into the fence post on the right after hitting the wall at the exit of Maison Blanche. Things got even worse from here, though.Next in line at Maison Blanche was the second Maserati in the entry list: the #10 of the LOGOS team, piloted by Jacob Anderson and Dominik Pieper. With the headlights already turned off during the dawn, the driver misjudged the curve and bounced off of the exit wall so strongly that his car comfortably avoided the gate in the foreground.Instead, his car ended up on the grass on the right hand side at more than 230 km/h, where it uncontrollably skidded towards the Filière Stars Jaguar that was slowly grinding to a halt on the grass after its impacts with the gate post and wall had blown the engine.The fatal high-speed impact led the LOGOS Maserati to flip over violently immediately after impacting the Filière Stars Jaguar, and was sent further airborne by the Moisty Sim Racing #54 Ford GT X1 Roadster piloted by the only driver in the field who used a Controller as an input device: GT_Nismo from the United Kingdom. You can watch his lucky escape from his point of view here.
The SG Stern Lola got into trouble 40 minutes into Knechtel's first stint. He tried to lap the Nissan of Sagliss that was running 3rd in the P2000 class by going around the outside at Tertre Rouge, but overshot the curve a bit. After understeering against the sandbank, the Lola bounced back on track, making contact with the Sagliss Nissan that was sent across the track to the right side. Although both drivers were able to keep their cars under control after this contact, the Nissan then veered back to the left and sent the leader head-first into a tree. With a bent front suspension, Knechtel had no choice but to prepone the next pit stop, putting his car strategically off-sequence to everyone else.
Despite this scary moment at Indianapolis where the #66 Nissan of AssettoCorsaFriends backed out on the track following a crash after contact with the #3 BELGER Nissan, ...... the #34 Lola of MS Development was able to stay on track and retain the lead it inherited from the #92.Nat Stevenson and Florian Masse in the #40 Lola of Écurie Blue Arrows delivered consistently quick laptimes to silently make their way up to 2nd place ... ... by passing the #108 Lola of the Zweterige Kreeft team. Their drivers Merlijn, Ben Nash and Machina admitted that they were "forced to drive this red machine of death by evil American Lobster Farmers and money launderers". Aside from that, they stated that their main sponsor wants to open a restaurant in every town in France and feels that racing car sponsorship is the only viable option. All things considered, this trio evidently did their best to survive this ordeal. After Ben Nash sadly fell victim to a disconnect from the server, they finished in 9th position overall.Close call for Rueben Souders after he clips the wall at Maison Blanche and avoids the gate post, before pitting for repairs and more fuel.Just 15 minutes later, he survived the same situation at Maison Blanche after the SG Stern Lola began to appear in his rear view mirror.The Cursim Vector Ford gets back underway at the "S" du Tertre Rouge after a spin, right when Souders and Knechtel arrive in their battle for 4th place.Unlucky timing for Souders, who has to brake hard to avoid a collision ...... and promptly loses the position to Knechtel who took advantage of this situation.Souders catches the slipstream of Knechtel's Lola on the Ligne droite des Hunaudières ...... and launches an attack on the inside going into the braking zone for Mulsanne ...... where Knechtel can leverage the Lola's sublime anchoring capabilities to outbrake Souders's Ford around the outside before slowly starting to outrun the Side Heart Motorsports Ford.Three-way fight in the two liter prototype class between the Ramada Vintage Racing #51 Nissan and the pair of Porsches by That Sim Racing Team II (#32) and CAF (#944), while the Écurie Blue Arrows Lola goes through on the Ligne droite des HunaudièresNew class leader for the P2000 class at the 4 hour mark: Pitman on his way to the second Longstop of the Thundering Trio Nissan, to hand it over to DudereiMatheus Nolli behind the wheel of HiHi Racing #39 briefly enjoyed 2nd place in the P2000 class after the yellow #77 Chevron served one of the mandatory Longstops but Adam Keefe was already catching up again afterwards to retake 2nd place in the near future
Top 5 after 4 hours:
MS Development #34
Écurie Blue Arrows #40 +12.2s
KamiMazi #727 +12.7s
SG Stern I #92 +21.9s
Side Heart Motorsport #127 +4.2s
Top 5 of class P2000 after 4 hours:
Thundering Trio #97
HiHi Racing #39 +39.9s
Northeast Endurance #77 +3.8s
RS Sagliss #41 +42.1s
That Sim Racing Team II #32 +202.4s
Fifth Hour
Entering the last third of the race, the strategies of the participating cars were still mostly under cloud cover that wouldn't be fully lifted until late in the race. Having survived the most dangerous timeframes, the teams were doing their best to up the pace and gain positions after swapping in fresh drivers during the night who were now figuring out how to be fast in the daytime while avoiding costly mistakes. For some unlucky drivers with unplanned extra stints, however, fatigue was taking its toll.
After chasing down the HiHi Racing Porsche, Adam Keefe in the #77 Northeast Endurance Chevron goes through on the run from Arnage to Maison Blanche to retake 2nd place. After the Thundering Trio Nissan went in for its second Longstop a couple of minutes later, Adam Keefe was back in the lead. With a solid drive through the first four hours of the race, Moisty Sim Racing in the #54 Ford GT X1 Roadster had already advanced to 7th place overall when a huge mistake on the brakes by GT_Nismo sent their car airborne over the sandbank at Tertre Rouge with 1:50h to go.The rough impact with the sandbank and ground destroyed the front suspension of the Ford ...... and prompted GT_Nismo to pull over and call the tow truck. In the end, they finished in 10th position.Having recovered from the horrendous accident at Maison Blanche during the third hour, Romain Pichon was back on track but fatigue increasingly took its toll after wrestling this big purple cat for 4:20h without any noteworthy pauses. After failing to get the car slowed down in time at Mulsanne, it was time to turn it around.Regrettably, he didn't spin it around but instead relied on the surprisingly large turning circle of the front wheels. He drove it up the earth bank that supported the retaining wall in the Mulsanne runoff before dropping it back down onto the ground on the other side of it.That drop was too much for the fragile front left suspension, which collapsed.After he couldn't get the car slowed down for Indianapolis, he took the emergency exit and called the tow truck. Although he initially threw in the towel at this point, Romain Pichon's fighting spirit prevailed and he eventually resumed the race to take the checkered flag in 41st position despite suffering a late disconnect that forced him to reconnect to the race server two laps before the end of the race.Advanced aerodynamics at work: the reincarnated LOGOS Maserati had risen from the ashes of its earlier fatal accident after Maison Blanche and now used the driver's door as an air brake at Mulsanne. In addition to their accident, the mismatched Real Penalty client installation of one of their drivers cost them a lot of time. Nevertheless, the LOGOS team went on to achieve 16th place overall.Then came the moment that silenced the entire main grandstands. Once again, it was Maison Blanche, the section that had been the scene of so many tragedies throughout the past few hours.Although their "undercut strategy" with early Longstops had hidden the KamiMazi crew from the top of the leaderboard most of the time during the night, they had emerged as the crew to beat if they managed to keep their fast widowmaker on the road. FMG had taken over the wild vampire from HappyKojot at the halfway point of the race and stormed into the lead with incredibly fast laptimes and had a huge margin by the time it all went wrong.After a huge mistake at Maison Blanche saw him clipping the inside wall at Maison Blanche, the KamiMazi Maserati violently slammed into the exit wall, which spat him back out across the track ...... and head-on into the left wall, before spinning multiple times.Unbelievably, the Maserati emerged from this huge accident in working condition, and FMG didn't even pull into the pit lane until one lap later!
The bloodthirst of Maison Blanche still wasn't satisfied, though, and it was ready to take its next victims after the next round of scheduled pit stops had briefly brought the SG Stern Lola back into the lead. Their lead was only ever going to be of temporary nature, as they were still due for their second Longstop due to having gone off-sequence with a premature repair & fuel stop after their accident at Tertre Rouge, 40 minutes after the driver change from meisterJäger to Valentin Knechtel.
The #98 GPLRACER Porsche 906 had already suffered a devastating accident at Maison Blanche in front of the #92 SG Stern Lola in the dark, but that didn't remain their only one. After 4:45h, Uli Hofmann clipped the wall at the exit of Maison Blanche while the same Lola was right on his car's tail, and this time they both ran out of luck together.
Lucky to still have a driveable car after this huge accident, Knechtel brought the #92 SG Stern Lola right into the pits to serve the remaining second Longstop for his car while repairing the damage, adding fuel, and adding tires. The GPLRACER Porsche was severely damaged from hitting the walls and the two green Lolas of SG Stern and Plebian Racing, but managed to crawl to the pits while trailing a major smokescreen behind it.
With the last scheduled long stops ending, the picture at the front of the field became clearer. The #727 Maserati of the KamiMazi team, now driven by FMG from England, held a 70 second lead over the MS Development Lola of Kami_Kaze31 and Streetbike, who in turn held a comfortable 56 second lead over the Écurie Blue Arrows Lola of Nat Stevenson and Florian Masse. SG Stern's Lola and the best Ford GT X1 Roadster from Side Heart Motorsports rounded out the top five.
Top 5 after five hours:
KamiMazi #727
MS Development #34 +70.8s
Écurie Blue Arrows #40 +55.8s
SG Stern I #92 +25.5s
Side Heart Motorsports #127 +21.5s
Top 5 of Prototype 2000 class after five hours:
Northeast Endurance #77
Thundering Trio #97 +213.8s
RS Sagliss #41 +70.4s
HiHi Racing #39 +178.1s
CAF #944 +3.4s
Undercover in black and gold: the #944 Porsche 906 E of CAF made three appearances in the Prototype 2000 class's hourly top 5 rankings en route to 5th in class as the best-ranked Porsche, driven by Crow, Felix789, and Bionic Bromando. [Picture by Lokopixo]
Sixth Hour
The final hour cleared up the cloud cover of strategies. It became increasingly apparent whom a team was fighting against until the end, but disaster was always ready, lurking behind the next corner and ready to take out those whose fatigue got the better of them in the wrong moment. Beyond the top 5 of each class, several other successful teams emerged as well.
The Ford GT40 Mk I teams spent most of the race flying under the radar as their cars did not have the pace to challenge for front-running positions. Driving the #28 VAC-GA entry, Atchy & Gregory Myers from the United States leveraged their consistency to finish 12th overall as the best Mk 1.Écurie Orange was a fan favorite in the Jaguar XJ13 with the number 17 driven by Bazza & Hitman, spectacularly battling with Romain Pichon's #8 Jaguar in the early hours of the race. Although they were caught up in some bad luck along the way, they put on a great show before fittingly taking home 17th place as the top-finishing Jaguar team. [Picture by Nopitch]After the loss of the #6 Intercontinental Racing car during the night, the last iron in the fire for the Ferrari fans was the #7 Debilos Series car crewed by champinotor and phichu from France. Challenged by the open-roof version's poor top speed and the small fuel tank of the 330 P4 in addition to tough luck during the race, they soldiered on towards 19th position.JVM Racing from Spain silently made their way into the Top 10 in class in the best Porsche 904/8 Coupé: al, Aritzer Cuesta, and Beneharo Dorta Méndez piloted the #63 car to 10th in class and 31st position overall.
One strategic question mark remained: who would need a late Splash & Dash to get their car across the line, and who would not? While the top 2 positions were very much cemented at this stage unless a disaster occurred, the margin for 3rd place was not quite big enough to be safe even in the event of a Splash & Dash yet, and the drivers contesting that position were driving as fast as they could.
Two massive accidents 38 minutes before the checkered flag shook things up once more and served as a strong reminder for everyone else to stay focused.
James Pendry was running 4th in the P2000 class with the #39 HiHi Racing Porsche when he clipped the grass in the approach to Maison Blanche a tad too hard and understeered into the exit wall afterwards ...... which spat him back out to the left relentlessly, leading him to crash head-on into the barriers that kicked him right back into the path of the #43 SG Stern Nissan. That Nissan was driven by InGroover after having taken over from Dennis Hillmann and Julian Ressel. Although InGroover was saved by the netcode here and carried on without losing too much time, the devastated #39 Porsche's driver called a tow truck and fell out of the top 5, dropping down to 11th in class (32nd overall) in the end.The high-speed section from Arnage to Maison Blanche may seem easy at first glance, but one mistake in the wrong place is enough to turn you into a passenger, as AP_ehhh in the second virtueller Asphalt Lola with the number 23 found out less than a minute after the previously-depicted accident.Without any chance to get the car back onto the tarmac or stopped in time, the Lola skidded through the grass and was sent airborne a second time by the embankment of the little stream under the bridge that leads to Maison Blanche. The driver was able to limp the car to the pits successfully after this crash, and the pit crew sent them back on their way after repairs to yield 18th position overall in the end.
A couple of minutes later and from 3rd place overall, Nat Stevenson in the Écurie Blue Arrows Lola suddenly showed up in the pit lane in need of a splash & dash. How long would it take and how much would it cost them in the end?
Knechtel in the SG Stern Lola snatched 3rd while Stevenson was refuelingThe Side Heart Motorsports Ford, back in the hands of Adam Celárek again for the final stint, came flying through when Stevenson accelerated out of the pit lane. Would his margin over the British-French Lola with fresh tyres be enough to secure 4th position?After witnessing Stevenson slowly getting closer and closer throughout the next 8 laps, Celárek missed the braking point for the "S" du Tertre Rouge and hit the barrier. Although he escaped without a spin and somehow also with a straight suspension, what remained of his margin over the Lola had evaporated entirely now.When the Ford driver also missed the braking point at Tertre Rouge, Nat Stevenson in the Écurie Blue Arrows Lola took the opportunity to move ahead.Celárek took the slipstream of the Stevenson's Lola down the Ligne droite des Hunaudières before overtaking him after Courbe des Hunaudières ...... and bravely cutting across the nose of the Lola to grab the inside line for braking at Mulsanne ...... to recapture 4th place from Stevenson.Stevenson caught a fantastic exit out of Mulsanne and launched an immediate counterattack, outaccelerating Celárek's Ford through Courbe du Golf ...... but the Czech driver immediately took Stevenson's slipstream again and sent it into the first part of Indianapolis sideways around the outside with 2 wheels on the grass to get back ahead of him.Incredibly, Stevenson managed to fend him off sideways around the outside ... [Picture by Florian Masse]... and displayed a similar amount of opposite lock through Arnage, where ...... Celárek got a better exit that allowed him to get back ahead on the run to Maison Blanche!Following a brave run through Maison Blanche to stay in the slipstream of the Ford on the front straight, Nat Stevenson sent it down the inside of Adam Celárek in front of the loudly cheering main grandstands at 300 km/h ...... but the Czech driver outbraved him around the outside through Courbe Dunlop to defend the position!Following a very sideways run through the "S" du Tertre Rouge, however, ...... he locked up the inside front wheel for Virage du Tertre Rouge, allowing Stevenson to sneak through once again.He caught up with the Écurie Blue Arrows Lola again on the run down the Ligne droite des Hunaudières and advanced back into 4th position just before the Virage des Hunaudières kink. In the background, the white and red #26 Lola of Gwendou Rising Stars in 6th position trailed the pair by a couple of hundred meters as the last car on the lead lap, with the leading #727 Maserati already visible as well and slowly closing in. Would they end up going a lap down?After sneaking right back into the slipstream of the Ford at Virage des Hunaudières, Stevenson in the Lola launched the next attack around the outside coming into Mulsanne. While giving everything to defend the inside on the brakes, Celárek locked up the brakes and overshot the corner heavily, forcing him to surrender 4th place to Écurie Blue Arrows for good this time. What a battle!As the last laps wore on, the Side Heart Motorsports got slower and slower, releasing the throttle earlier and earlier before braking. Many in the paddock were left wondering if the brakes of the Ford had begun to fail in the final minutes, or if the big Ford motor was just a tad too thirsty for them to make it to the end without a splash & dash after accidents had slightly offset their strategy. Going into the final lap and with the Gwendou Rising Stars Lola almost in striking distance in the rear view mirror, a misjudged braking point after coasting caused the big Ford to overshoot at Mulsanne again.Lexord in the #26 Lola of Gwendou Rising Stars gladly accepted this last minute gift and advanced into 5th position while Celárek performed a 270 degree turn in order to head in the right direction again. Side Heart Motorsports's final lap drama was only beginning now, though.The leader came right through as well and put a lap on him, but Celárek outaccelerated him before backing off going into Courbe du Golf to fall behind again. Did Side Heart Motorsports need to save themselves from adding an extra lap here?Then, all of a sudden, the leader decided to clarify the definition of "We brake for nobody" once more ...... by prompting a couple of ill-positioned photographers to run for cover at Esses d'Indianapolis! Intricately, this forced the Side Heart Motorsports Ford that was running on fumes in 6th place back onto the lead lap.
Finish
Guess who almost died at Maison Blanche on the final lap?
Luckily for the KamiMazi team, almost was truthfully added to the caption of the picture above! Three men jointly achieved what nobody else believed to be possible on race day by subjecting themselves to the ultimate baptism of fire. They wrestled with the lunatic Starfighter from Modena for 6 hours and, in addition to beating all of their competitors along the way, they successfully fought off (or luckily survived) all of their car's best efforts to turn itself into a fireball by wrapping itself around a tree.
Meet your new THR Endurance Kings!
Overall winners of the THR 6 Heures du Mans 2024: #727 KamiMazi Maserati Tipo 151/3 driven by Flashor from Germany, HappyKojot from Poland, and FMG from Great Britain with a final winning margin of 1:22 minutes [Picture by Lokopixo]2nd place overall: #34 MS Development Lola T70 Mk3 GT driven by Kami_Kaze31 and Streetbike from France: after beating all other Lolas in qualifying, they repeated the same feat again with a lightning-fast and highly reliable run other than an early contact that had put them behind a sandbank at Mulsanne. After taking on new tires shortly before the end of the race, Kami_Kaze31 scored the fastest lap of the race (3:23,892 min) and still finished 1:21 minutes ahead of 3rd place. [Picture by Lokopixo]3rd place overall: #92 SG Stern Lola T70 Mk3 GT driven by meisterJäger and Valentin Knechtel from Germany. Even if their gap behind the 2nd-placed Lola of MS Development may have been a little bit smaller than 1:21 minutes without their two accidents, they concluded that P3 was probably the best they could hope for. [Picture by Lokopixo]P2000 Class Victory for Adam Keefe (USA) who incredibly lapped all of his direct competitors and set the fastest lap of this class (3:41.564 min) during a monumental six hour solo run behind the wheel of the canary yellow #77 Chevron B8 FVA of Northeast Endurance Racing, beating even the #4 Ford GT40 Mk1 of 1UP Sim Racing in the faster class en route to 21st place overall. Thanks to his track position at the end of the race with the overall winner taking the checkered flag behind him but ahead of his closest competitor, his final margin in the results over 2nd in class was a whopping two laps. [Picture by Lokopixo]2nd place in the P2000 class and 23rd overall went to margar17, pitman & Duderei, the Thundering Trio from Germany in the #97 Nissan R380-II, despite 2 extra pit stops to split the driving time as evenly as possible [Picture by Lokopixo]3rd place in the P2000 class and 24th overall went to Revival Series Sagliss in the #41 Nissan R380-II piloted by Kent LeFredge from Canada and Lokopixo from France [Picture by Lokopixo]
How about some extra drama from the finish for dessert?
While coasting to get lapped by the KamiMazi #727 Maserati right before the finish line, Adam Celárek's steering wheel came off and he bumped into the wall on the last few meters, right when the Maserati came flying through to a cheering crowd to take its victory. The bruised and battered Ford GT X1 Roadster of Side Heart Motorsports Ford made it to the finish line despite this crash, and took home 6th place.The #50 Chevron B8 FVA of Nissena Corse crashed at Maison Blanche on the final lap. Nat Stevenson took evasive action successfully behind the wheel of the #40 Lola T70 Mk3 GT of Écurie Blue Arrows to take home 4th place overall.Only a couple of seconds later, the #26 Lola T70 Mk3 GT of Gwendou Rising Stars, piloted by Lexord & Gwen from France, came through Maison Blanche en route to finishing in 5th place overall, only to be greeted by another horrifying sight: with Luca from the Netherlands behind the wheels, the #32 Porsche 906 E from That Sim Racing Team somersaulted across the wall and lost 28th place overall (7th place in the P2000 class) to the #42 Chevron B8 FVA of SG Stern, piloted by Christoph Mües and Adrian Sprung from Germany! You can review this tragedy unfolding from onboard the #42 car here.
Official Results
Six hours of stunning displays of bravery, skill, and sportsmanship have come to an end - an epic story that had it all: drama, triumph, and tragedy. These are the official results of the THR 6 Heures du Mans 2024.
Detailed information on all cars, the track, event stats and (almost) all participants can be found at:bit.ly/Infoboard_4th-THR-Endurance
Only the top 5 cars finished on the lead lap! Many teams soldiered on against all odds, towing back cars with blown engines and ripped out suspensions after tragic accidents. This sporting spirit is what this race was all about.
Congratulations to the winning teams and everyone who made it to the checkered flag, and thank you to everyone who helped us to make this spectacular event happen. It was magic, and we'll remember it fondly!
Raffle
3DRAP kindly sponsored our post-race raffle. We conducted one raffle per class between all drivers whose participating cars finished the race, and the winners received a voucher from 3DRAP. Once again, thank you very much to 3DRAP for sponsoring this raffle!
In the Prototype 7000 class, the only driver who used a Controller to drive in the event received the voucher: GT_Nismo from the UK, a driver of the #54 Moisty Sim Racing Ford. If this is not the universe telling him that it's time to get a wheel, we'll happily tell him now as well: go for it, and have fun!In the Prototype 2000 class, the voucher went to Spain: Beneharo Dorta Méndez in the #63 JVM Racing Porsche 904/8 received it. Enjoy your voucher and particularly what you'll use it for!
Quotes
The mod was a huge team effort! almost 25 people contributed to them, both THR members ValentinK and Felix789 played a big role (and lets not forget long time Meisterskinner Benjamin Nash from VAC/ Sweaty Lobster who also participated). The icing on the cake is everyone enjoying it and people organizing great events like these! Huge respect for THR for setting this up in such a professional way!
For me this was a dream come true, driving a full grid virtual historic Le Mans in multiclass! One of the best simracing experiences I've ever had in 30 years of simracing 😎 If THR dares to include GT class for the next event, I think the immersion will be over the top! 🙃 😍 Thanks to everyone!
Bazza
TBH. After that last Sunday Endurance I feel I am missing something big. I am feeling lost. I don’t know what to drive anymore. That event was the peak of my sim career. I almost lost the appetite to drive modern racing cars. I want to just drive vintage cars and just to drive manual shifting. It’s hard to find something that satisfies me for the time being. Thanks THR. ❤️🍻❤️
The vibe of practicing putting the strategy working on the skin and all other preparations were so great experience. Usually I am buying the ACC DLCs the same minute they are out. But right now I even didn’t look at it since it was released.
Ihab Abbas
Man at 4h51 on the English broadcast, someone is doing Steiner math. With wrestling references, this broadcast is golden.
Kent LeFredge
I've only just woken up enough to get back on a PC. Massive thank you to the orga and the broadcasters. Epic job by all, even if we all had our fair shares of issues. Looking forward to going and catching up on all the action I missed while driving/engineering now. 🙂 Thank you again.
FMG
I posted earlier my huge thanks to the organisers but just also want to thank the commentary team on the broadcast, they were brilliant and entertaining, and as always with a good race broadcast it brings the event to life, great work gents 👏🏻👍🏻
Ps that was my first historics race in 3 years, what a return! Loved every minute of this amazing event and we finished 15th in the Mk1 with 9 faster Lola’s ahead of us 💪 vive la escargot 🐌 😀
Mark Johnson
What a great experience. Thank you all for all of your effort. Both the English an the German coverage were/are the icing on the cake. Well done guys!
Taffy
Guys, as Revival Series leader, i have no words to tell you how grateful i am that you invited us to this event. It was great, immersive and fair racing, with a good and fun community. Pretty sure you will see us again!
Nopitch
I apologize to the n944 car, I made a very serious mistake after being hit by the n22, my brain at that moment came off, I was not lucid, I lost my bearings, I did not understand if I was on the pit side or on the track and with a confused mind I reversed instead of doing esc and I was hit by the innocent 944 car. and others, I'm very sorry for ruining their race, it was absolutely not my intention. Even if it's little, please accept my heartfelt apologies, first of all to the n944 crew, then to the organizers and all the race teams.
Vittorio Rubino
Even if it went badly for us, proud and satisfied to have participated. We are looking forward to another endurance, signed by the friends of the communities, in the lists and always with vintage cars, Bazza, DRM etc.
Luigi Bingo
incredible race, epic, I would like to first apologize for the inconvenience that I may have caused to the other drivers and congratulate the organization for an incredible job as well as the rest of the participants, incredible... I can't get over my astonishment, I can only say...great...great....great.
al
Thanks to everyone who came for interviews BTW, it was great getting to meet some of you and chat about the race progress
