Part-way into the 10th hour, the #1 Audi’s time at the top was brought to a halt by an unscheduled pit stop to repair apparent contact damage. The team elected to combine this repair work with a brake change, fulfilling the car’s requirement to make a five-minute ‘technical’ pit stop. Not long after, the #59 McLaren pitted from a top 20 position with left-front damage, but its repairs saw it spend around eight minutes in the garage.
There were now just three cars on the lead lap, with Maxime Soulet at the wheel setting some very fast laps and getting the #8 Bentley more and more on terms with the #99 BMW, now in the hands of Philipp Eng. Markus Winkelhock held third in the #6 Phoenix Audi, which hadn’t been set back too much by its earlier puncture.
A lap down on that trio were the #58 McLaren of Come Ledogar and the #57 Black Falcon Mercedes of Adam Christodolou, the latter car having made steady progress from a pitlane start due to a pre-race engine change, and Vincent Abril in the #7 Bentley. All three of those cars were almost precisely synced on pit strategy, coming in on the same lap at almost exactly 14 hours to go.
Approaching 3am, the leading #99 car elected to make its mandatory five-minute ‘technical’ pit stop, bringing Philipp Eng in early from his stint and changine brakes. Although the beginning of the stop happened under FCY (covering the recovery of the stranded Boutsen Ginion BMW), the track went back to green before it was over, leaving the car standing in the pits for about two minutes as the rest of the field circulated at full racing speed.
The sister #98 ROWE car also got its brake-change stop out of the way before half-distance, which temporarily dropped it to the lower reaches of the top 20. Approaching the half-way point of 4am, the #8 Bentley had cycled into the lead with Wolfgang Reip at the wheel, chased by Mies in the #6 Audi.
Third was the #7 Bentley in the hands of Guy Smith, ahead of early race leader Mirko Bortolotti in the #16 Lamborghini and Michael Meadows in the #2 WRT Audi. Sims emerged from the #99’s stop with the car in sixth, just ahead of Mortara in the #75 ISR Audi and Haupt in the #57 Black Falcon Mercedes. Max Gotz and Max Buhk held ninth and 10th as the six Mercedes entries that qualified in the top 20 continued to recover from their early-race penalty.
Previous top 10 runner the #58 McLaren had now fallen well back due to spending over 17 minutes in the pits repairing damage, incorporating its mandatory five-minute stop in the process. Just 10 minutes before the half-way point, the #2 Audi was handed from Meadows to Frijns in a routine driver-change stop that temporarily dropped it out of the top 10.
There then followed a full-course yellow after the #41 CMR Sport Garage Ferrari dropped oil on track. The #16 Grasser Lamborghini was close to its scheduled pit time so unsurprisingly was in on the next tour, as was the #6 Audi. Neither made their long brake-change stop at this time, but the #4 WRT Audi did.
The race-leading #8 Bentley made its long stop just after half-distance, managing to complete it before the full-course yellow was lifted.
Franck Perera in the #74 ISR Audi led the Pro-Am Cup at half-way, ahead of Michael Lyons’ AKKA-ASP Mercedes and the #11 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Michal Broniszewksi.
Kessel was also top of the Am Cup after 12 hours: Liam Talbot had a lap in hand over Rino Mastronardi’s AF Corse Ferrari and Marco Seefried in the Rinaldi Racing 488 that spun on the first lap.
