I may have missed 917 day, but I’m sure as hell not missing 919 day! The Friday mail call last week came right in time.
Meet the Sparky trio of 2015 Le Mans LMP1 Porsches:
- #17, driven by Timo Berhard, Brendon Hartley, and Mark Webber
- #18, driven by Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas, and Neel Jani
- #19, driven by Earl Bamber, Nick Tandy, and off-duty F1 driver Nico Hülkenberg.
2015 was, of course, the year that Porsche would start taking back the overall win in the 24H Du Mans, en route to three in a row this past June. There is a great documentary about this race on Amazon that also focusses a lot on the Nissan LMP1 entry, but we will instead focus on the three Porsches.
After earning “only” P2 in the previous edition of the Le Mans 24H, Porsche reworked the 919 for the 2015 season, resulting in 85-90% new components, and a much lighter dry weight. The result was a 1st place finish in 6 out of the 8 WEC races, and a WEC championship.
At Le Mans in 2015 the #17 broke the qualifying record set in 2008 by nearly a second, only to have its new record broken again by the #18 car, giving it provisional pole position with a time of 3:16.887. The #19 car started third.
In the end, the #19 car was the most problem-free, and took the checkered flag a lap ahead of the #17 car, followed by the #7 Audi R18 another lap back. The #18 car took P5, four laps behind the winners.
I’d love to run through the entire race, but that would take a bit too long!
Let’s move on to the models, though! These are Spark’s effort in 1:64, and a good effort it certainly is! The cars are well put together, have excellent detail, and even roll a little bit! The suspension is kind of off in places, but overall I’m super pleased with these! I wanted them ever since I spotted them on Instagram, but ebay listed them for $20 or so each (that’s before shipping), so I patiently waited. Then labor day brought a sale on American Excellence and I snagged em for $8 each! Whoo!
Now just gotta get a set of 1:43s and 1:18s and I’ll be all set! :D
And in honor of the new arrivals, I redid my display cabinet. It was much needed!
