Three hours into the 24 Hours of Le Mans the #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid driven by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José Maria López leads the race, some 20 seconds ahead of the sister #8 car shared by Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa. The #708 Glickenhaus Racing 007 LMH driven by Olivier Pla, Romain Dumas and Pipo Derani is third, a full one and a half minutes behind the leading Hypercar.
At the top of the second hour, the #7 Toyota of Conway led the #8 of Buemi by ten seconds. The two Toyota GR010s kept on pulling away from the two SCG 007s, as well as the #36 Alpine Elf Team A480-Gibson in fifth.But towards the end of the second hour of racing, Franck Mailleux brought the #709 Glickenhaus Racing 007 LMH into the pits, and mechanics removed the engine cover. “One of the engine sensors was giving us weird data,” said Jim Glickenhaus. “We did not want to take any risks, so we changed this part and went back out. The car is running well now. There is nothing to worry about,” he added.
As this stop was short, the #709 car returned to the track in fifth position, nearly a minute behind the #36 Alpine in fourth. All the Hypercars came in for driver changes after over two hours of racing, and positions remained unchanged after these pit stops.
The #7 Toyota, now driven by López, kept on pulling away from the rest of the Hypercar field. The Argentinian even snatched the fastest lap of the race, clocking a 3’28.819. Moments later though, teammate Hartley retaliated in the #8 with a lap time of 3’28.232, soon followed by Dumas in the #708 Glickenhaus who set a lap time of 3’28.110.
Meanwhile in LMP2, the #38 JOTA Oreca 07-Gibson shared by Roberto Gonzalez, Antonio Felix Da Costa, and Will Stevens leads the class, some thirty five seconds ahead of the #5 Team Penske Oreca driven by Dane Cameron, Emmanuel Collard and Felipe Nasr, and nearly forty seconds ahead of the #9 Prema Orlen Team Oreca shared by Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz and Lorenzo Colombo.
Further down in the ranks, the #48 IDEC Sport Oreca 07 Gibson lost a wheel. Paul-Loup Chatin drove slowly to his pit to replace his missing tyre “It’s a shame,” said the Frenchman. “We had a good pace, but we suddenly lost this tyre. I am concerned that this may have damaged our car.” The #48 car would pit moments later for additional repairs on the front splitter. Also, the #3 DKR Engineering Oreca driven by Jean Glorieux hit the guardrails hard upon exiting Indianapolis. The car limped back to the pits for repairs and returned to the track.
Corvette Racing maintains its pace at the front of the GTE Pro class, as Jordan Taylor now leads aboard the #63 Corvette C8.R, lapping in the 3’52 range and opening a gap of 28 seconds to the #64 Corvette.
The Porsche GT Team pairing is starting to close the gap though in third and fourth. Their staggered tyre strategy between the two cars has been monitored closely, as tyre performance became critically important as the afternoon’s high track temperatures begin to level off and cool into the evening.
A spin at Arnage corner for the #64 Corvette, paired with a quick fuel stop and driver change for the #91 Porsche, had put Gianmaria Bruni second. Tommy Milner’s pace in the #64 Corvette was half a second faster than that of the Porsche though, and Milner began eating into the gap, before the American driver passed Bruni and reasserted the Corvette 1-2.
Michael Christensen lost precious seconds in a delayed handover from Kevin Estre which, combined with a change of tyres, lost the #92 car its fourth place to Antonio Fuoco’s #52 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo. Christensen got the hammer down though, to regain the place on pace on the Mulsanne straight, improving the #92 Porsche’s position at the next round of stops.
The sister #51 AF Corse Ferrari was given a Drive Through Penalty for Alessandro Pier Guidi’s abuse of track limits, dropping it behind the leading GTE-Am Porsche – until Pier Guidi clawed back the time.
Sam Bird’s #74 Riley Motorsports Ferrari was gently slipping back, more than a second adrift on lap times, but running without issue – it’s still early days in this final battle for GTE Pro honours.
A fierce battle emerged for the lead in GTE-Am, and Julien Andlauer’s Weathertech Racing #79 Porsche lined up and made the pass on Alessio Picariello’s #91 Hardpoint Racing Porsche through the Indianapolis / Arnage sequence early in the second hour.
After making his move for the lead, the Porsche factory driver started to pull away at the front. After three hours, Andlauer was trailed by Sebastian Priaulx, in his first racing stint at Le Mans for Dempsey-Proton Racing in their #77 Porsche. The leading Porsche pair were over 40 seconds apart, but already running 37th and 39th overall, splitting the tail end GTE-Pro Ferraris.
Nicki Thiim’s solid bedding-in work for Northwest AMR handed a decent car over to David Pittard to put the #98 Aston Martin third in class. Team Project 1’s #46 and the #99 Hardpoint Motorsport Porsches held fourth and fifth, before Nicolas Leutwiler suffered a puncture and beached the #46 Porsche at Indianapolis corner. This brought the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin closer into contention. Henrique Chaves had been progressing up through the field, pressuring the #57 Kessel Racing/CarGuy Ferrari into a scary off-track excursion on approach to Terte Rouge. With Charlie Fagg continuing his solid run in the #777 D’Station Racing Vantage, the top five was Porsche 1 and 2, Aston Martin 3, 4 and 5, followed by Kessel’s #57 car spearheading four chasing Ferraris.
The #86 GR Racing 911 RSR-19 that had flown in the hands of Ben Barker had dropped out of contention, as Mike Wainright settled into his first race stint. Other incidents occurred in the form of spins for Iron Lynx, the #60 driven by Claudio Schiavone car went off at Mulsanne Corner, followed by a similar excursion for the #75 entry. Both cars continued untroubled.
