With one hour left in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa remains in the lead. The #7 Toyota driven by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José Maria López is second overall, some 2 minutes and twenty seconds behind the sister car.
The #709 Glickenhaus Racing SCG 007 LMH of Ryan Briscoe, Richard Westbrook and Franck Maileux is still third, four laps behind the leading Hypercar. Their sister car, the #708 driven by Olivier Pla, Romain Dumas and Pipo Derani is now fourth overall, some ten laps behind the lead Toyota. It’s a true accomplishment for this driver line-up as they had dropped to fifteenth position during the eighth hour of racing following Pla’s contact with a tire wall at Tertre Rouge.
Meanwhile in LMP2, the #38 JOTA Oreca 07-Gibson shared by Roberto González, António Félix Da Costa, and Will Stevens still has a firm grip on the race with a lead of nearly two minutes over the #9 Prema Orlen Team Oreca of Robert Kubica, Louis Delétraz and Lorenzo Colombo. The #28 JOTA Oreca driven by Roberto Gonzalez, Antonio Felix Da Costa and Will Stevens is third and in the same lap as the #9.
Further back in the ranks, the #35 Ultimate Racing Oreca has serious clutch issues. Their drivers actually expressed concerns about being able to take the chequered flag at 4 P.M. The #10 Vector Sport Oreca driven by Nico Müller went dead as it left its pits. Müller understood that the car had a faulty right front wishbone. In turn, mechanics of the British car had to push the car back down the pit lane and into its garage for repairs.
The #45 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca driven by Steven Thomas, James Allen and René Binder, still leads the Pro-Am category, some two laps ahead of the #24 Nielsen Racing Oreca 07 Gibson of Rodrigo Sales, Matt Bell and Ben Hanley.
The #91 Porsche leads GTE Pro into its final hour at Le Mans, Richard Lietz taking over following a full service to fulfill his seat time before handing the car back to Frédéric Makowiecki. The car controlled the pace at the front for the first time, but still pressed on, three seconds a lap quicker than the out of sequence #51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo , back in the hands of James Calado. The British reigning champion was certainly not giving up and kept up the pace and pressure to keep the Porsche on its toes, albeit over a minute adrift of the lead.
Ben Keating’s outstanding run in GTE Am ploughed towards the finish, the red and blue 4-Horsemen liveried #33 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage AMR still solid at the front and managing its pace.
#77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche was brought into its pit from third place, with Sebastian Priaulx at the wheel. The #77 Porsche vacated third as the car was frantically worked on to fix a lower front wishbone failure as time ticked away. The car that had shown so well for a decent finish dropped way out of contention, but re-joining to hopefully take the finish. WeatherTech Racing’s #79 Porsche was pushing hard in second. Thomas Merrill dropped the car into the gravel at the Porsche Curves, the American rookie doing well to keep the car moving.
David Pittard posted consecutive personal best laps, including a 3’53.492 – his best in the hunt for the #99 Hardpoint Racing Porsche that had been running strongly in third. Andrew Haryanto had a lot of seat time to fill to meet his minimum requirement in the #99 Porsche, and was no match for the chasing Pittard, the Northwest AMR crew’s Silver driver much more experienced and taking the place while the #99 car went to the pits. Aston Martin now has cars running first and third.
Pittard said, “The consistency of both Aston Martins has brought them to the front, but the Porsches have been so fast, it’s felt like a round of the Porsche Carrera Cup at the front. The Northwest AMR team has given us a fast and reliable car. It’s not their first rodeo, but for me I’ve had the best week of my life.”
Hardpoint Racing were still showing as fourth in class, but Haryanto was spotted going slowly into the second chicane with a suspected puncture. Dempsey-Proton Racing’s #88 car was tied to the back of Ricardo Pera’s #86 GR Racing 911-RSR-19 for fifth place in GTE-Am, Jan Heylen in his debut Le Mans, Gold driver chasing Silver.
This was one of the highlights of the closing stages of this year’s race, Heylen taking the place but then having to soak up pressure from Benjamin Barker, the star performer of the #86 crew, both cars on fresh rubber. Barker drafted by the Belgian campaigner and started to focus on Nick Cassidy’s AF Corse Ferrari a couple of seconds down the road. This could be a big finish for fourth place, which would be a well earned result for the GR Racing team.
Claudio Schiavoni’s earlier accident sent the Italian driver to the medical centre, but he was released. The #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari, however, was officially retired from the race.
