Alonso wins the 24 Hours of Le Mans on debut!

Fernando Alonso has won the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans on his debut in the race, as his team Toyota cruised to a one-two finish on the Circuit de La Sarthe.

The Spaniard has been very vocal about wanting to win the Triple Crown, which is the Monaco Grand Prix (or an F1-title for some), the Indy 500 and Le Mans. He's already checked off the F1-part as he's a two-time champion, as well as a multiple time Monaco Grand Prix winner.

After retiring from last year's Indy 500, the next step for Alonso was Le Mans. He signed up with Toyota, the only factory team in the highest WEC category (LMP1), and announced that he would compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps (Daytona and Spa to practice for Le Mans).

Toyota had two cars present, with Alonso being accompanied by Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima. It was the latter who drove the car to pole position ahead of the other #7 Toyota, who started in second. The #7 took the early lead, however, going almost half a minute clear in the opening hours. 

Alonso climbed in the car after a few hours of waiting in the pit, and immediately showed that he meant business. He chased down, overtook and left the other Toyota behind, manned by Michael Conway at the time. 

Then, punctures slowed the #8 car down. Several punctures, as well as a one minute-penalty for Nakajima, meant that the #7 Toyota went over two minutes ahead as night fell over the Circuit de La Sarthe.

Toyota, a team that has been called cursed as they have thrown away wins in the final hours countless times, had no real competition in this year's edition. Porsche had withdrawn its candidacy, meaning that 1) Toyota literally had no excuses to not win this time and 2) they had no close competitors other than themselves, which meant that they didn't need to push themselves to the limit throughout the whole race.

As the sun rose again, it was Alonso's #8 Toyota who had taken the lead again over the other Toyota (Again, Alonso overtaking Conway). Maybe it was team orders, maybe it was just a series of punctures and great pace from Alonso, but the fact remained that Alonso, Buemi and Nakajima's car was back in the lead, and never let it go from there.

In the final two hours, it seemed like the #7 car was going to retire and the curse was maybe going to rear its ugly head, as Kobayashi was driving around with 50 miles per hour and limping back to the pitlane. What really happened was that he forgot to come in the lap before for fuel. A slip of the mind, it happens when you've been racing for 22 hours.

Surely not again! The nr. 7 Toyota is limping back to the pitlane... will they lose this race AGAIN in the final hours?! #LeMans24 pic.twitter.com/LsAgEZyxha

— Nicolás Quarles vU (@Nico_QvU) 17 June 2018

And so Alonso won his maiden 24 Hours of Le Mans! A great achievement from the Spaniard to pull this off in his debut race. Yes, he had the best car by a country mile, but it's just never easy to keep a car going for 24 hours straight. Curse lifted for Toyota, another step closer to the triple crown for Alonso. Happy days!