There was thankfully only a few post-race changes for the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans results.
The positive news is that all the cars that were checked, were deemed legal. That hasn’t always been the case, where a pair of Ford cars last year had too large fuel tanks, or when the Vaillante Rebellion was disqualified in 2017, for drilling a small hole in the engine cover, so they could give a knock on a sick starter motor at each pitstop, without having to remove the engine cover.
But we didn’t get through this year’s edition, without a few changes.
Rebellion Racing #3 got a 30-second penalty, for overtaking during the Safety Car, towards the end of the race.
Photo: JJ Media
Cool Racing #42 had made a slight calculation error, when Alexandre Coigny was in the car for 2 minutes and 3,880 seconds too long within a 6-hour period. They were handed a penalty of exactly 2 minutes and 3,880 seconds, which sent them from 7th down to 8th amongst the LMP2 cars.
The largest penalty by far went to Inter Europol Competition #34. Rene Binder did just over half an hour too little. There is a minimum drive time of 6 hours for all drivers. It’s not been possible to trace the exact cause, but Binder was put in the car with just under 90 minutes to go. He only did 3 laps, before he pitted. If he had done the full stint, or simply just finished the race, he would have done his drive time. Something would point towards Binder not being well enough to fulfil the requirements. The three laps he did, was just about half a minute slower than a regular LMP2 pace. The team was handed a 9 lap and 56 seconds penalty. They were already last amongst the finishing LMP2 cars, but it’s still a sad note to end the Le Mans week on.
43 of the 59 entered cars were classified, which is a bit below the average, over the last five years.
