The 24 Hours of Le Mans is entering the final four hours which promise to be both uncertain and exciting and decisive.
How the fourth seasonal event of the FIA World Endurance Championship at the Circuit de la Sarthe will end is still to be defined, while the weather could still play a fundamental role.
Upon restarting from the Safety Car which came into action at the 18th hour – with 5h30′ on the clock – sparks immediately flew between the Ferraris #83 and #50, and the Toyota #8, at that moment driven respectively by Robert Shwartzman, Antonio Fuoco and Sébastien Buemi, intent on fighting for third position behind the #2 Cadillac and the #5 Porsche which had passed in front with a different strategy in the pit stops compared to the others.
Bad mistake at ‘Indianapolis’ for Pipo Derani, hitting the wall with the #311 Action Express Racing Cadillac, irreparably destroying the Rossoneri V-Series.R.
At the end of the 19th hour, Fuoco broke through, reaching and overtaking the official 963 of Frédéric Makowiecki, who shortly thereafter stopped in the pits for a break. The cold shower for the Frenchman, however, came with the Drive Through penalty for not having correctly respected the Slow Zone procedure, a sanction also imposed on the Lamborghini #19 and the Porsche-Jota #38.
Full Course Yellow very short in the final laps of the 20th hour when Grégoire Saucy parked his #59 McLaren on the side of the track.
#83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman, Yifei Ye
Photo by: Marc Fleury
While waiting to understand what scenarios the weather will have in store for us, in the Hypercar Class the Ferrari #50 pulled ahead slightly on the #83 of AF Corse, which was defending itself well from the Toyota #8 when Buemi made a move on Shwartzman to earn 2nd place .
Porsche #6 loses ground, still in the Top5 together with Ferrari #51 separated by 5″, further away are Jota’s Porsches and Cadillac #2, which remains with a different strategy in stopping times.
Peugeot and Lamborghini are instead fighting each other hoping for a return to the Top10, no problem for Isotta Fraschini who moved up to 16th with Jean-Karl Vernay.
In the LMP2 Class, Vector Sport’s Oreca #10 has a very narrow lead over Idec Sport #28 and Inter Europol #34, a little further behind now United #22 and Cool Racing #37 who continue to keep the Top5 in their hands.
AF Corse #183 hopes to return here, having a good advantage over AO by TF #14 in the fight for victory in PRO/AM, occupying sixth and seventh place overall in the category.
With two laps behind the leader, APR #25 and DKR #33 remain, who together with Panis Racing #65 complete the Top10.
In the LMGT3 Class, with the problems experienced by the #92 Porsche, the hopes for the German company are now pinned on the #91 of Manthey EMA, with a handful of seconds to manage on the BMW #31 of Team WRT.
However, watch out for the Lamborghini #85 of the Iron Dames which took third place, overtaking the Ford Mustang #88 of Proton Competition, which was in turn being chased by the McLaren #59 of United Autosports in the duel for fourth place before the KO of the 720 .
The #44 Proton Mustang is now fifth, chased by the #78 and #87 Lexus, the Ferraris of GR Racing #86 and AF Corse #55 will fight for the last spots of the Top10.
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