Le Mans 12hr report: Toyota Leads at Half-Distance; Porsche 1-2 in LMGT3
A second safety car period arrives just before the halfway mark at Le Mans as heavy rain arrives...
The Headlines after 12hrs at Le Mans
Hypercar – Leader: No.8 Toyota
Racing returned to green flag running after a 90-minute safety car period to repair barriers on the Mulsanne Straight at midnight.
With rain falling and cool temperatures upon resumption of racing conditions are treacherous but it is Toyota that forges to the front with the No.8 GR010 Hybrid Hypercar
Shortly after the green flag is shown Robert Kubica is given a 30-second stop/go penalty for the safety car triggering incident with Dries Vanthoor in the No.15 BMW M Team WRT Hypercar
That gives two-time winner Ryo Hirakawa an advantage which via smart tyre strategy ensures he leads the No.6 Porsche Penske 963 Hybrid in the early hours of the morning
Hirakawa then hands over to teammate Sebastien Buemi who enters in to a battle with first Vanthoor and then Andre Lotterer who circulates just a few seconds behind the leading Toyota
But as the track slowly dries, Buemi is able to stretch out the gap as the stint progresses from 1.30-2.30am and the Toyota driver, who is aiming for a fifth Le Mans crown, hands over to Brendon Hartley with a lead of 30-seconds but with another rain shower starting up
The No.6 Porsche is taken over by Kevin Estre who then attempts to reduce the gap to Hartley. Gaps reduce further as clock ticks to 4am and half-distance under the second safety car as heavy rain arrives
The No.7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid is placed third with Kamui Kobayashi completing the majority of laps in the early hours of Sunday morning before Toyota super-sub Joe-Maria Lopez takes over in the cockpit
Antonio Fuoco goes on a charge in the No.50 Ferrari AF Corse entry after an entertaining battle with Earl Bamber in the No.2 Cadillac V-Series.R for fourth place
Fuoco and Bamber swap positions several times but the Italian wins out and sets after chasing down the No.7 Toyota for third position
Ferraris also run fourth and fifth as the No.50 factory Ferrari heads the sister No.51 499P, while Alex Palou in the No.2 Cadillac V-Series.R Hypercar races the Ferraris closely in sixth position
The rest of the top 10 is made up of: 7th No.83 AF Corse; 8th No.38 Hertz Team Jota Porsche; 9th No.3 Cadillac; 10th No.5 Porsche Penske
The Action Express Cadillac driven by Jack Aitken spins in to gravel just before 4am and with heavy rain sweeping the track a likely lengthy safety car period begins
Mikkel Jensen in the No.93 Peugeot 9X8 clatters the armco upon the entry to Tertre Rouge just after midnight but escapes without any significant damage and the car runs 16th behind the sister No.94 9X8
LMGT3 – Leader: No.92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche
No.92 Manthey PureRxcing leads stablemates No.91 Manthey EMA as a Porsche 1-2 plays out as half distance arrives in the first ever LMGT3 race at Le Mans
Alex Malykhin and Yasser Shahin run 1-2 under safety car at the halfway mark as the heavy rain neutralises the race
United Autosports moves in to third position as the No.59 United Autosports McLaren of Nicolas Costa, Gregoire Saucy and James Cottingham close up to the Porches after second safety car is deployed
The Saucy driven McLaren LMGT3 was involved in an incident with the Jordan Taylor driven No.155 Spirit of Race Ferrari 296 LMGT3 and both cars are delayed. Incident is placed under investigation
Fourth is the No.78 Akkodis ASP Lexus’ of Arnold Robin, Timur Boguslavskiy and Kelvin van der Linde. They briefly led after starting the race from the pitlane and with a penalty after a warm-up incident with the No.7 Toyota
The second of the United Autosport McLarens of Marino Sato, Nico Pino and Hiroshi Hamaguchi places sixth after a clean run in the early hours
The rest of the top ten in LMGT3 is made up of: 7th – Iron Dames Lamborghini; 8th No.87 Akkodis ASP Lexus; 9th No.31 Team WRT BMW; 10th No.88 Proton Ford Mustang
No.46 Team WRT BMW LMGT3 retires from the race in 10th hour as Ahmed Al Harthy crashes exiting the Dunlop Chicane meaning that he, Valentino Rossi and Maxime Martin’s promising Le Mans is over
Fellow brief early race leaders, the JMW Motorsport Ferrari also retires as Salih Yoluc is forced to stop at Maison Blanche
LMP2 – Leader: No.183 AF Corse
The LMP2 battle closes up after first safety car with the AF Corse Oreca-Gibson of Nicola Varonne, Francois Perrodo and Ben Barnicoat emerging as leader in both LMP2 and LMP2 Pro/Am
The No.37 Cool Racing car of Malthe Jakobsen, Ritomo Miyata and Lorenzo Fluxa places second, while the defending champions at Le Mans, the Inter Europol Competition team (Vlad Lomko, Kuba Smeichowski and Clement Novalak is third despite losing a wheel and being forced to pit in the early stages of the race
Completing the top six is the No.22 United Autosports car driven by Nolan Siegel at half distance, the Vector Sport Oreca-Gibson of Patrick Pilet and the AO by TF ‘Spike’ crowd favourite in the hands of Alex Quinn
David Heinemeier Hansson in the Nielsen LMP2 entry collects Zacharie Robichon in the No.77 Proton Ford Mustang at the Forest Esses just before 3am triggering a Slow Zone
Nielsen were well placed in the category running in the top three as teams change positions in pit-stop periods on different strategies after dry/wet/dry running. Heinemeier Hansson has another spin shortly after and the British run car drops to 10th in class as a result
The No.45 Crowdstrike Racing by APR LMP2 stops on track at 03.15am as Colin Braun loses his left rear wheel and is forced to retire, bringing out the third Full Course Yellow of the race
The Duqueine Oreca-Gibson retires just after midnight with a technical failure which stops it on the Mulsanne Straight
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