Audi Dominant with 1-2-3 @ Le Mans 2010

This year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans proved the fastest car doesn’t always win. Peugeot learnt this the hard way when all of their leading 908s retired, leaving Mike Rockenfeller, Timo Barnhard and Romain Dumas of Audi Sport North America the overall victory. In doing so they beat the distance record by completing 397 laps totaling 5,410.7 km (3,362.1 mi). The other two Audis placed second and third which underlined the reliability of their new variable turbine geometry (VTG) turbochargers.

Both GT class leaders suffered the same fate as Pegueot. The leading Matech-Ford GT1s retired due to failure and the Corvettes which led GT2 for most of the race retired as well. A particularly controversial pass by Anthony Davidson crashed the leading Corvette and handed the GT2 overall victory to the Porsche of Team Felbermayr-Proton. The Risi Competizione Ferrari also retired earlier in the lead with gearbox failure.

Separated into Le Mans Prototypes (LMP) and GT cars, our gallery has many spectacular images from the week in France. Whether you consider this year to be Peugeot’s loss or Audi’s win, it was an eventful race that saw only 50% of the competitors finish.