A shower of records for Michelin at Le Mans

Scoring a 23rd consecutive victory at September’s Le Mans 24 Hours wasn’t the only new benchmark Michelin established in La Sarthe this year…

• The most striking achievement of the 2020 Le Mans was probably the fact that a single set of Michelin Pilot Sport tyres completed no less than 750 kilometres at an average speed nudging 240kph when Californian Gustavo Menezes completed 55 laps in the N°1 Rebellion R13 LMP1 prototype on Sunday morning.

• Japan’s Kamui Kobayashi clinched pole-position in Friday’s Hyperpole shootout with a new lap record (3m15.267s / 251.2kph) for Version 15 of the Circuit des 24 Heures (13.626km) in his Toyota TS050 Hybrid.

• The same session saw Michelin post a new fastest lap time in LMP2 (3m24.528s / 239.8kph), thanks to ex-F1 driver Paul di Resta in the N°22 Oreca-Gibson.

• A new race lap record was clocked on Michelin Pilot Sport tyres in LMGTE Am when Ross Gunn produced a time of 3m52.449s (211kph) – an improvement of practically three seconds! – in the N°98 Aston Martin Vantage.

• Bruno Senna (Rebellion R13/Michelin) came close to bettering the existing benchmark for the fastest race lap average speed behind the wheel of a non-hybrid LMP1 prototype, falling just 0.2kph short of the 246.4kph recorded by a Michelin-equipped Audi some years back.

• This year’s race saw the LMP2 distance record beaten, too, thanks to the 5,041.62km/370 laps completed by the N°22 United Autosports Oreca-Gibson of Paul di Resta/Filipe Albuquerque/Phil Hanson which consumed just 13 sets of Michelin Pilot Sport tyres in the process.

• Two Michelin-equipped cars– the N°97 Aston Martin Vantage and N°51 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo – went further in the race than any LMGTE Pro runner before them (4,714.59km).

• The top-five LMGTE Am finishers (representing three different makes, and all on Michelin rubber) beat the class’s race-distance record. The figure to beat now stands at 4,619km (339 laps).