In front of 252,500 spectators, Mike took the start of the 87th edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours in the pole-sitting #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid and stated his intent in his opening stint as he maintained the lead over the sister car and quickly stretched out a five-second lead in the early laps.

Flying out of the blocks, Mike set the fastest-ever Le Mans race lap of 3:17.297-minutes on the fourth lap of the race and after the first hour of racing, Mike had built a healthy 16-second gap to the second-placed #8 car.

Delivering a superb quadruple stint on the same set of Michelin tyres to begin the race, Mike had increased his lead to over 40 seconds and handed the driver duties over to Kamui after completing 43 laps.

“It was a good first stint. The car felt good and I could push straight away. I kept it all clean on the first lap then pushed hard. I was able to pull away from the sister car and build a good gap.” 

A solid stint from Kamui saw the #7 stretch its lead to almost a minute and as night descended on the 13.626km circuit, José jumped behind the wheel for his first stint of the race.

The minute advantage the #7 team had pulled out was wiped up and the race effectively reset as a series of safety cars and full-course yellows put the sister car right on the tail of the #7 Toyota.

In hour seven and with the race reaching full darkness, a full-course yellow was caused by the #3 Rebellion hitting the barriers, which allowed the #8 Toyota to take a cheap pit stop which meant the #7 slipped out of the lead of the race for the first time.

The full-course yellow then changed into a safety car period which brought José onto the tail of the #8 and he soon passed the sister car to retake the lead. However, a small mistake saw José run wide at Mulsanne corner, taking a trip through the gravel and falling back to second place.

Mike then took over driver duties from José and began to hunt the #8 car down and Mike was able to switch the ten-second deficit to the sister car to a seven-second advantage during a rapid stint and when he completed his second stint of the race the #7 Toyota remained in the lead of the race with Kamui at the wheel.

As the sun rose and the race hit the 15-hour mark, José took the #7’s 22nd stop of the race, and led the sister car by more than 70 seconds and after another full-course yellow for a spinning GTE AM car, the gap was stretched to more than 80 seconds.

As the clock began to count down, Mike was back behind the wheel as the race hit the 20-hour point and led the race by more than two minutes as the clock reached the final four hours.

However, Mike and the team were forced into an unplanned pitstop during a full-course yellow, but the lead gap was big enough that Mike was able to hand the car over to Kamui still with the dominant two-minute lead over the #8 machine.

With less than an hour remaining, and with a healthy two-minute lead over second place, José suffered a puncture. One tyre was changed at the subsequent pit stop but a sensor issue led to the wrong tyre being identified.

This meant that José returned to the track still with a deflating tyre and had to limp his way around the entire 13.626 km circuit, allowing the sister #8 car to snatch the lead of the race.

With the tyre finally changed and the car back up to racing speed, José was a minute behind with just over thirty minutes remaining on the clock.

Reducing the gap to 18 seconds at the finish, José crossed the finishing line to end the race in second place to deliver another runner-up finish for the #7 car and Mike – his third-second place at the legendary race.