At the halfway point of the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps the no8 Toyota TS040 of Sebastien Buemi and the no26 G-Drive Racing were holding comfortable leads at the head of their respective classes.
Toyota managed to get ahead of the no14 Porsche 919 hybrid when Neel Jani pitted to hand over the car to Marc Lieb. Once Buemi was ahead they Swiss driver started to pull away from the rest of the field and by the end of second 90 minutes the gap stood at over 26 seconds. The no 7 Toyota of Kazuki Nakajima was holding third in front of the three Audi R18s led by the no1 car of Tom Kristensen. The no 2 Audi had a trip to the pit garage with an electrical problem but this was soon solved and Benoit Treluyer was soon back on track.
The no20 Porsche continued to have problems and Bernhard had to come back into the pits for the mechanics to swap out a broken front driveshaft.
In the LMP2 battle the no26 G-Drive Racing of Roman Rusinov entered the second half of the race with a lead of over 60 seconds ahead of the no38 JOTA Sport Zytek of Simon Dolan. The no37 SMP Racing Oreca of Viktor Shaitar over took the JOTA for second place but Dolan was promoted back into second when the Russian pitted to hand over the car to Anton Ladygin. In a TV interview Richard Bradley reported his front running KCMG had been hit by debris which had affected the front downforce of the Oreca-Nissan and was the main reason the car was running down the order after starting the race at the front of the LMP2 field.
The no 12 Rebellion Racing R-One of Nicolas Prost ended the first half of the race six laps behind the leading Toyota but the no13 R-One was spending a lot of time in the garage as the team continued to put as many miles on the brand new car as possible.
RACE FACTS – 180 MINUTES
17:28:25 Track temperature now over 20C
17:26:56 Toyota #7 lap times slower by around 2 seconds a lap now 56 seconds behind the leader
17:18:40 Toyota #8 now leads #14 Porsche by 26 seconds on lap 79
17:15:42 Porsche #20 back into race after repairs - down in 21st place
17:12:44 Aston #98 leads GTE Am by 29 seconds from #61 Ferrari
17:11:30 Ferrari #51 leads GTE Pro from #99 Aston by 21 seconds
17:09:55 G-Drive Morgan #26 leads repaired #37 SMP Oreca by over a minute in LMP2
17:07:17 Toyota #8 leads Porsche #14 by 16 seconds on lap 74
17:04:11 Porsche #20 has failed right front driveshaft
17:00:31 Leading Porsche #14 into pits - no new tyres, #8 Toyota takes lead
16:57:57 Porsche #14 retakes lead
16:56:04 Toyota #8 into pits - no tyres
16:55:26 LMP1-L leading Rebellion R-One now up to 7th
16:54:09 Aston #98 takes lead in GTE Am from #95 Aston on lap 59
16:52:44 Toyota #7 into pits
16:48:53 Porsche #20 back into pits and pushed into garage - has crack in headlight
16:47:14 Leading LMP1-L Rebellion now up to 9th place overall
16:44:25 Ferrari #15 leads GTE Pro by 16 seconds from #99 Aston and #92 Porsche
16:39:37 Oreca #47 lost front left dive plane after hitting debris (maybe from a Toyota)
16:35:57 Rebellion #13 back out after long stop
16:33:54 KCMG Oreca #47 stopped early for check after hitting debris but all ok
16:29:26 Ferrari #51 takes lead in GTE Pro as #99 Aston stops
16:27:27 Aston #99 now leads GTE Pro from #51 Ferarri
16:23:11 G-Drive Morgan #26 now leads LMP2 by 36 seconds from #38 Zytek
16:20:46 Audi fixed a loose connector on #2 at last stop costing about 25 seconds
16:12:04 Toyota #8 takes lead after slow stop for Porsche #14 and 2nd fastest lap of race by Toyota
16:10:37 Ferrari #61 leads GTE Am from #98 Aston
16:09:26 Leading Porsche #14 into pit, Lieb into car
16:07:34 Treluyer into #2 Audi
16:06:55 Kristensen into #1 Audi
16:05:51 Toyota #8 and Audi #1 and #2 into pits
16:04:17 Toyota #7 into pits from 3rd and takes on tyres
16:02:44 Rebellion #13 into garage
16:00:33 Rebellion #13 running slowly on circuit
