24 Hours Le Mans 2016 Part 1

The 84th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 84e 24 Heures du Mans) was a 24-hour automobile endurance racing event held for 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. 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. The event was attended by 263,500 people.

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, 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. Risi Competizione Ferrari were second with Giancarlo Fisichella, Toni Vilander and Matteo Malucelli, after they and the winning Ford 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..........