Dunlop’s Le Mans in Numbers

Dunlop’s Le Mans in Numbers
The 2014 Le Mans 24h was a significant race for Dunlop. In the LMP2 category, which was the only class to have open competition between tyre manufacturers this year, Dunlop equipped cars finished first, second and third.  Jota Sport’s success marked the fourth consecutive Dunlop win in LMP2 at Le Mans.

Here, we dive into the statistics to tell the story of a fascinating battle – 2014 saw comparatively little safety car wet running so figures are unsurprisingly very different to the 2013 race.

Dunlop Achievements for 2014 Le Mans 24 Hours – LMP2 finishers:
- The top three teams all ran on Dunlop tyres as did five out of the top six finishers – a repeat of 2013’s statistic

- Cars on Dunlop tyres led all of the 354 laps

- Winners Jota led just 8.8% of the race, holding the lead on five separate occasions throughout
 #35 G-Drive Racing led 240 laps – 67.8% of the total distance

- Six different teams led with 29 changes throughout the 24 hours

- The top 17 fastest driver laps in the whole event, in nine different cars, were on Dunlop tyres

- The nine fastest race laps were on Dunlop tyres with six different cars chassis/engine combinations

- The fastest race lap was set by Nelson Panciatici in the Signatech Alpine car. His time of 3:37.787  was just 0.006 seconds faster than the lap set by Tristan Gommendy in the Thiriet by TDS Racing team and 0.3 seconds faster than 2013’s record, despite track works which theoretically slowed times by over a full second

- Eight different fastest lap times were set by five different drivers throughout the race, all on Dunlop tyres

- Jota’s Harry Tincknell and Signatech’s Nelson Panciatici set the fastest 10-lap average stints in the order of 3:40.1 – just 0.12 seconds off the fastest single non-Dunlop lap

- The top 20 stints on average times were all done by Dunlop-shod cars.

- All five specifications of tyre were used and all were at least double-stinted including the wet and intermediate options – the first time that all five specifications have multi-stinted in race

- Jota used quadruple stinting as part of their strategy to come back from an early issue and win the race - most teams triple and quadruple stinted the slick tyres. Jota only used 11 sets of slick tyres for the full 24 hour race.

Jean-Felix Bazelin, General Manager Dunlop Motorsport Europe stated: 
"There is no doubt that 2014 was a very good race for Dunlop but it is the reward for our hard work over the winter. Even though we had a strong product range last year it was important for us to work with our teams to give them as big a performance advantage as possible. Despite the track theoretically being slower, we contributed to the lap record being cut again and we will continue to improve where we can to give our teams strong, fast and versatile tyres as possible for all conditions."