Laravel 5.1 DB:select toArray()

I have a large SQL statement that I am executing like so..

$result = DB::select($sql);

I'd like the result to be an array - but at the moment it returns a structure like so, an array with Objects...

Array
(
    [0] => stdClass Object
    (
        [field] => 6
    )
...etc...

via Chebli Mohamed