Zoom Across the finish line once again

This year's Le Mans 24 Hours saw Team Modena continue the 100% finishing record of their Aston Martin DBR9, the car completing its third round-the-clock race at the French circuit. For those into statistics, here are some facts and figures from the race.

An analysis of some of the mass of data that comes out of the Le Mans 24 Hours reveals both good and bad news for Team Modena. The good news was that they recorded a top-ten finish in the Michelin Energy Endurance Challenge. Ninth in the final rankings of the 55 entries, the MEEC is calculated on a ratio of the car's average speed and its average fuel consumption, and is open to every car in the race.

The bad news was the pit stop data issued by organisers - the ACO - which shows the team's Aston Martin was stationary for 2h21m19s early in the morning as the gearbox was rebuilt, effectively blunting any hopes of a strong result for the team.

In all, the car spent 3h09m04s in the pits with a total of 33 pit stops, the vast majority normal fuel, tyre and driver changes.

The team completed 174 laps in the first 12 hours of the race, and while doubling that total gives a false result as the second half of the event was wet and featured much slower laps times, comparisons with rivals show that the car could have been in the thick of the class action.

Average speed for the DBR9 was 121.99mph for the first 12 hours, and 106.38mph for the race overall - highlighting the effect of the long pit stop and the rain that came in from around 4am local time.

The drivers completed a total of 2561 miles of racing in the 24 Hours, approximately the straight-line distance from London to Baghdad.

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