Night has fallen when we are at a third of the race in the 24h of Le Mans, the third seasonal event of the FIA World Endurance Championship that continues with emotions and surprises.
While Team Project 1 had to permanently retire the # 46 Porsche due to too many vibrations after Nicolas Leutwiler went off the track, the twists continued to change the ranking.
A collision between Michael Fassbender’s Porsche # 93 (Proton Competition) and Vincent Abril’s Ferrari # 61 at the eighth hour caused a Slow Zone (1 ‘penalty for the AF Corse Monegasque), but in reality in all categories something happened.
# 7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria Lopez
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
Among the Hypercars it is undisputed domination for the Toyota GR010 Hybrid, with the # 8 of Buemi / Hartley / Hirakawa which was for a long time ahead of the # 7 of López / Kobayashi / Conway, before being surpassed at the end of the eighth hour.
Behind them instead climbed the Glickenhaus 007 LMH # 709 of Westbrook / Briscoe / Mailleux because the # 708 of Pla / Dumas / Derani was the protagonist of an off-track exit at ‘Tertre Rouge’, so it was seen overtaken by her colleague . Pla reached the pits with the rear right on the ground and the car returned to the garage for repairs also on the left side of the rear, exiting a few minutes later.
The Alpine A480 LMP1 # 36 of Team Signatech is still in fifth place in its category with Negrão / Lapierre / Vaxivière, but they have fallen very far from their rivals in order to be able to hope to overtake them (except for the problems of others).
# 38 Jota Oreca 07 – Gibson LMP2 of Roberto Gonzalez, Antonio Felix da Costa, William Stevens
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
In Class LMP2 the Oreca 07-Gibson # 38 of Jota (Da Costa / Gonzalez / Stevens) does not show any problems, also acendo a good advantage over the # 9 of Prema (Kubica / Colombo / Delétraz).
Jota is also in contention for the third position with the # 28 of Aberdein / Rasmussen / Jones, to compete with the # 13 of TDS Racing X Vaillante (De Vries / Beche / Van Der Helm).
The # 43 of the Inter Europol Competition (Scherer / Fittipaldi / Heinemeier-Hansson) climbed to the Top5, followed by the # 31 of WRT (Rast / Frijns / Gelael) and the # 65 of Panis Racing (Canal / Jamin / Van Uitert).
The # 37 of Cool Racing (Ye / Taylor / Kruetten) and the # 5 of Team Penske (Cameron / Nasr / Collard) complete the Top 10 of the category ahead of the # 23 of United Autosports USA (Jarvis / Lynn / Pierson).
Among the PRO / AM of AF Corse (# 83 Perrodo / Nielsen / Rovera) she was forced to a long pit stop to replace the illuminated number panels, dropping eighth and now regaining at least fifth position.
The # 45 of Algarve Pro Racing (Thomas / Allen / Binder) therefore took the lead, second was the # 44 of ARC Bratislava (Konopka / Viscaal / Vautier) overcoming the # 3 of DKR Engineering (Glorieux / Cougnaud / Horr) and # 39 by Graff Racing (# 39 Droux / Page / Trouillet).
# 63 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R LMGTE Pro of Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor, Nicky Catsburg
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
The most sensational twists came from the LMGTE PRO Class, where the Chevrolet Corvette C8.R from Pratt & Miller seemed to be projected towards a comfortable success.
Instead the # 64 of Milner / Tandy / Sims had to stop a lot in the pits due to a problem, but worse went to the # 63 of Garcia / Taylor / Catsburg, which found itself with a punctured rear left rear and broken suspension, with just under half a mile. track to go to reach the pits, where the technicians have tried to fix it.
At the moment, Manthey’s Porsche 911 RSR-19s are leading the operations with Estre / Christensen / Vanthoor (# 92) followed by # 91 Bruni / Lietz / Makowiecki, forced to serve a Drive Through for abuse of Track-Limits.
Incredible to see that on the podium there is an AF Corse Ferrari 488: it is the # 51 of Calado / Pier Guidi / Serra, which now have the Corvette # 64 and their teammates Fuoco / Molina / Rigon (# 52) behind them, also ran into a puncture.
The # 74 Ferrari of Riley Motorsport driven by Bird / Van Gisbergen / Fraga finds himself sixth, with the # 63 Corvette behind.
# 79 Weather Tech Racing Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE Am by Cooper MacNeil, Julien Andlauer, Gianluca Giraudi
Photo by: Paul Foster
In the LMGTE AM class unchanged the primacy of Porsche # 79 of WeatherTech Racing / Proton (MacNeil / Andlauer / Merrill), with again behind that of # 77 of Dempsey-Proton Racing (Tincknell / Ried / Priaulx) which managed to overtake the Astons Martin Vantage # 33 of TF Sport (Keating / Chaves / Sørensen) and # 98 of NorthWest AMR (Dalla Lana / Thiim / Pittard).
Porsche # 99 of Hardpoint / Absolute Racing (Haryanto / Picariello / Rump) is also in the Top5, then the # 56 of Project 1 / Inception (Iribe / Millroy / Barnicoat) is sixth.
The best of the Ferraris at the moment is seventh thanks to the # 54 of AF Corse (Cassidy / Castellacci / Flohr), in the Top10 there are also the Porsche # 88 of Dempsey-Proton Racing, and the Ferraris # 59 and # 71 of Inception and Spirit of Race.
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