Rebellion LMP2 squad stripped of overall Le Mans podium

Nelson Piquet Jr, David Heinemeier Hansson and Mathias Beche had taken Rebellion's #13 Oreca 07-Gibson to the team's first outright podium finish at La Sarthe last Sunday, taking advantage of only two LMP1 cars finishing the race and none without significant mechanical trouble.

The #13 trio ended up three laps behind the winning Porsche LMP1 in third overall, and two laps down on the winning LMP2 car, the #38 DC Racing Oreca of Oliver Jarvis, Thomas Laurent and Ho-Pin Tung.

However, Rebellion was found to be guilty post-race of "modifying a homologated part and using it partly during the race," and has been disqualified from the results.

The offence relates to a "hole that [had] been fashioned by the competitor in the right-hand side of the engine cover," which had been done to grant the Rebellion crew access to the starter motor – to tap a malfunctioning solenoid to reset it – without having to remove the engine cover and rear bodywork.

This in effect meant the #13 car ran the final part of the event with non-homologated bodywork, without any "crash damage or other cause which may be in mitigation".

Stewards were informed of this fact by a video taken by the technical delegate's staff during a pitstop, which was then shown to Rebellion.

The disqualification promotes the second DC Racing LMP2 car, the #37 machine shared by Alex Brundle, Tristan Gommendy and David Cheng, to second in class and third overall.

Signatech Alpine's #35 entry moves up to fourth, while the United Autosports Ligier inherits fifth. Toyota's only finisher, the #8 TS050 Hybrid, is promoted to eighth overall.