The 75th Le Mans 24 Hours.
Yokohama Rubber Company has bee competing in this endurance classic for 24 years running.

The 75th Le Mans 24 Hours Race was held in Le Mans, France. Yokohama Rubber Company has been competing in this event for 24 consecutive years. For this year's race, a Lamborghini Murcielago in the LMGT1 class run by JLOC from Japan and a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR in the LMGT2 class run by the one of most significant teams in the class, Seikel Motorsport, were equipped with ADVAN tires.

When JLOC's car was badly damaged by a crash in the qualifying session, the race organiser then decided that the car wouldn't be allowed to run in the race. However, the team tried to repair the car by using a monocoque frame of the same type which was found in Paris to make it possible to start the race. And after delicate negotiations, the organiser accepted to have an additional scrutineering session that the car duly cleared, so it finally appear on the starting grid of the 24 hours race.

In the race day's warm-up session, which was soaked by rain, the JLOC team was working on the set up of their Lamborghini Murcielago, running on ADVAN's rain tires which gave them a quite positive feedback, although the car itself was far from perfect condition after a hasty repair work in a very short time. Meanwhile, Seikel's Porsche didn't run in the session to save the car and stamina of drivers and crews, before the round-the-clock race.

The race started at three-o'clock p.m. which was one hour earlier than usual and it was still raining at the time of start. But in Lap 2, the TV monitor caught JLOC's Lamborghini coming to a halt on the course side, and because of a drive shaft failure, it couldn't come back to the pit. After the heavy shunt in the qualifying session, the team was told that they wouldn't be allowed to race but then they cleared all their problems with sincere negotiation and hard work in the garage. It was literally a "heaven and hell" situation for them and a real shame to retire so early in the race.

In the meantime, Seikel's Porsche steadily climbed to eighth in the class in the third hour of the race. But before five hours had passed, at 19:45, the car made an unscheduled pit stop. The driver reported a sudden loss of engine power and it was found that three cylinders of its six-cylinder engine didn't work. Although the team crew tried to resolve the problem and worked on the car for more than one hour, they couldn't fix it and had no choice but to retire.

Therefore, both ADVAN shod cars didn't take the checkered flag but they certainly displayed a high performance of the tires regardless of condition. Actually, many teams have shown a keen interest in the performance of ADVAN racing tires, which means it is now recognised as a true worldwide brand.