Top three Le Mans winners have a ZF connect

The 24-hour race at Le Mans (France) which ended in an Audi one-two victory – the German carmaker’s 13^th win at Le Mans – has a ZF Friedrichshafen AG connection.

In the WEC season’s pinnacle event, Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer in the Audi R18 e-tron quattro triumphed in front of their team-mates Lucas di Grassi, Marc Gené and Tom Kristensen. Both the Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars use ZF clutches.

Toyota, which completed the podium and is partnering ZF this season, had been leading the race for a long time with the #7 Toyota TS 040-Hybrid, which is equipped with a ZF brand clutch. However, the sports car retired with electronic problems after 14 hours. The sister car with Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Lapierre and Sébastien Buemi, also with a ZF clutch, lost ground early due to an accident but recovered to third place.

A strong debut was shown by the two Porsche 919 Hybrid cars, equipped with clutch technology by ZF. The LMP1 sports car of Timo Bernhard/Brendon Hartley/Mark Webber was leading during parts of the race but in the final stage retired with a defect. The second Porsche – driven by Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb – demonstrated its performance capabilities as well but lost ground and crossed the finish line on its own strength.

ZF has a wide-ranging motorsport programme in the 2014 season. As official cooperation partner, it equips among others the Volkswagen Polo R WRC with drivetrain and suspension technologies in the World Rally Championship. In the DTM, all three automobile manufacturers – Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz – rely exclusively on ZF Race Engineering clutches. In the Japanese Super GT, every car from Nissan and Lexus competing in the GT500 class also employ ZF clutches.

Results, Le Mans (F), round 3, WEC, June 14-15:

1. Fässler/Lotterer/Tréluyer, Audi, 24h 01m59.830s (ZF)
2. di Grassi/Gené/Kristensen, Audi, - 3 laps (ZF)
3. Davidson/Lapierre/Buemi, Toyota, - 5 laps (ZF)
4. Prost/Heidfeld/Beche, Rebellion-Toyota, - 19 laps
5. Dolan/Tincknell/Turvey, Zytek-Nissan, - 23 laps
6. Thiriet/Badey/Gommendy, Ligier-Nissan, - 24 laps
7. Chatin/Webb/Panciatici, Alpine-Nissan, - 24 laps
8. Capillaire/Rast/Charouz, Oreca-Nissan, - 25 laps
9. Brundle/Mardenborough/Shulzhitskiy, Ligier-Nissan, - 25 laps
10. Klien/Hirsch/Brandela, Morgan-Judd, - 27 laps