1995 24 Hours of Le Mans

Common card · No. 386671

The 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 63rd Grand Prix of Endurance and took place on 17 and 18 June 1995 in one of the wettest races in the event's history with about 17 hours of steady rain. The race was won by a McLaren F1 GTR driven by JJ Lehto, Yannick Dalmas and Masanori Sekiya, a consecutive win by a GT car. This was McLaren's first win at Le Mans, at its first attempt – only Ferrari had accomplished the same feat, in 1949. What was seen as remarkable was that the cars were untested over 24 hours, yet they led for all bar thirteen laps and at the end filled four of the first five places. Despite a careful Balance of Performance adjustment to try and match the WSC and GT cars, it was expected that the lighter weight and better downforce of the prototypes would prove superior. However, the extensive period of rain proved a bigger equaliser and took pressure off the delicate McLaren drivetrains. The small, light WRs of the LM P2 class scored a coup by locking out the front row of the...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Martin Lee from London, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0