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Porsche 919 Hybrid used 500 gallons of fuel to win Le Mans

After 395 laps and over 3,300 miles covered, Porsche claimed its record seventeenth overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year. Those, however, were only a few of the numbers that went into the German team's landmark campaign, the fourth one-two victory in the history of its assault on the endurance race. And now it has released some of the other mind-boggling figures behind its win. Over the course of 24 grueling hours of competition, the winning Porsche 919 Hybrid averaged a staggering 139 miles per hour, reaching a top speed of over 211 mph. Along the way, the winning car changed gears over 25,000 times. We can imagine the drivers worked up quite a sweat in a cockpit, whose temperature topped 80 degrees, with less than a quart of water to drink during each stint between pit stops – the longest of which lasted over ten hours. Little wonder that Mark Webber lost over six and a half pounds by the end of the ordeal. Naturally, pit stops played a huge part in the campaign, and the team – whose headcount topped 120 – carried out 90 stops (30 per car) over the course of the race. All told, the three cars went through 116 tires, each car had its oil refilled entirely, and the winning car alone swallowed up 500 gallons of fuel. And that's not even counting the energy recuperated by the electric component of the hybrid powertrain, which would be enough to power a family home for three months. Those are just some of the most notable figures, but they give us a pretty good idea of the enormity of the whole endeavor. Want to read more? There's a whole list of numbers in the press release below. Related Video: The 17th overall victory for Porsche at the Le Mans 24-Hours 395 laps to victory Stuttgart. On Sunday, 14th June 2015, the trio of Earl Bamber (NZ), Nico Hulkenberg (GER) and Nick Tandy (GBR) took the 17th overall victory for Porsche at the Le Mans 24-Hours. They were followed across the line by the sister car of Timo Bernhard (GER), Brendon Hartley (NZ) and Mark Webber (AUS). This made it the fourth one-two result for the brand after achieving this in 1971, 1987 and 1998. But there are more interesting facts and figures about the race. • The winning team completed 395 laps (5,382,82 kilometres). This year's race was only two laps short of the longest distance covered in Le Mans back in 2010. • The average speed of the winning Porsche 919 Hybrid was 224.2 km/h.

Meet the man that discovered and restored the oldest existing Porsche

Luciano Rupolo is an absolutely fascinating gentleman. He was born in France but spent nearly his entire life in Italy as an auto mechanic running his own shop. His grandfather and father instilled a love of sports cars in him that he carried on by historic racing in Italy for decades. He saw his life-long automotive passion repaid when he found and restored the car that might have been the first Porsche registered for the road.
You can spot in his garage a split-window Corvette, Ferrari 250 GTE and other exotics, but Rupolo's most interesting automotive story concerns his Iso Grifo Competizione (pictured above). The sports coupe was found in the Canary Islands as little more than a shell, but Rupolo got help from a prestigious source for its restoration. The result is a motoring masterpiece.
Rupolo is a fantastic storyteller with a captivating, tale to tell. Settle in, scroll down and watch the bittersweet documentary about his life with one of the first Porsches.

Ford GT dominates Le Mans qualifying, gets slapped with performance adjustment

Fifty years after Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon drove the Ford GT40 to victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ford is poised for a historic return to the Circuit de la Sarthe. The new Ford GT took the top two qualifying positions in the LMGTE Pro class, and four of the top five. Ferrari's 488 filled in the rest of the spots in the top seven, the first two from AF Corse. In other words, we're primed for a reboot of the classic Ford-Ferrari feud at this year's race. Or not, as the ACO, which organizes the 24 Hours of Le Mans, announced sweeping pre-race Balance of Performance (BOP) adjustments this morning that make this year's GT class anybody's race. In LMP1, last year's overall winner Porsche locked up the top two spots with the 919 Hybrid and will lead the entire field at race start. Toyota's two-car factory effort followed with qualifying times 1.004 and 2.170 seconds behind the pole lap. Audi rounds out the manufacturer-backed LMP1 class in fifth and sixth. Full qualifying results can be found here. The storyline for the GT cars is perfect - some say too perfect. Ford's class-leading times came after BOP adjustment to the Corvette Racing C7.R before qualifying. BOP is intended to level the playing field in the class by adjusting power, ballast, and fuel capacity. (Check out this explainer video for more, or even just if you love French accents.) But the process is riddled with unknowns and ripe for accusations of sandbagging. That is, if the Ford cars were intentionally slow in practice they could hope for BOP adjustment to improve their race chances. On the Corvette side, last year's GTE Pro winner went from the top of the field to the bottom, barely improving from practice to qualifying. If you think Le Mans is as rigged at the NBA Playoffs, well, it's not that simple. Because if Ford and Ferrari held back until qualifying - the eighth-place Porsche 911 RSR is three-and-a-half seconds off the class pole time - it was a pretty dumb strategy. This morning, the ACO tried to put things back in order by limiting the boost in the Ford GT's twin-turbo V6 and adding 11 pounds of ballast. Ferrari was also given extra weight but allowed more fuel capacity. The Corvette and Aston Martin teams were both given breaks on their air restrictors, which will allow their engines to make more power. Both Ford and Porsche also received extra fuel capacity.