Inter Europol overcomes adversity to win LMP2 at Le Mans

In LMP2, there was drama all the way to the final hour of the 24 Hours of Le Mans before the No. 34 Inter Europol ORECA completed what was a coming-of-age performance from the organization, which scored the first-ever Le Mans win for a Polish team.

Albert Costa, Jakub Smiechowski and an injured Fabio Scherer (who drove with a broken foot after being run over by the Corvette in pit lane) were superb in the second half of the race when things started to die down. They were pushed to the very end by WRT’s No. 41 ORECA of Louis Deletraz, Rui Andrade and Robert Kubica, who were just 21 seconds behind by the end of the race.

“When I started the race I thought it was over after 15 minutes because my foot hurt so much,” admitted Scherer, who hopped to the car at each pit stop. But with a lot of treatment, I was able to race. The adrenaline kicked in and I was in the flow. Now I start to feel my foot more and more but it doesn’t matter — to win Le Mans means everything. I don’t care if I can’t walk out of here!”

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There were multiple late-race scares for the Inter Europol team, in addition to managing Scherer’s injury. It was under investigation for a pit infringement two hours from the end that would have cost the team its lead if a drive-through was handed out. Thankfully, the penalty was limited to a reprimand.

However, the team’s focus quickly shifted as it had to manually place signage on the pit wall to instruct Scherer to pit in the closing hour as the car’s radio had failed. But they shook it all off and will now celebrate long into the night.

“After our podium at Spa, I thought Le Mans was still too big for us,” said Costa. “But it happened and I am lost for words. I was always following this race when I was younger. So to do it in my first attempt, to win this, is all I can say. It’s amazing.”