Four hours have been completed in the 92nd annual 24 Hours of Le Mans, with 63 laps completed by the overall leader, the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Robert Shwartzman.
At the top of the hour, Shwartzman in the yellow privateer Ferrari has a lead of just under 40 seconds to the factory #50 AF Corse Ferrari. Antonio Fuoco, who set the fastest lap of the race last hour with a 3:29.208, has now handed the controls off to co-driver Miguel Molina who’s in his first stint of the race.
Matt Campbell is running third in the #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, while the #4 Penske Porsche took advantage of a Full Course Yellow for a stricken LMP2 car, pitted and moved up to fourth place.
However, with Tandy under investigation for a potential breach of Full Course Yellow protocol, the timing of the #4’s pit stop may have been too good.
Oliver Rasmussen is now up to fifth in the #38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche – another car that pitted around the time of the FCY – while after a pit stop, Brendon Hartley has taken over the sixth-placed #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid, leading the #51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, and the #12 JOTA Porsche of Callum Ilott.
Despite the earlier rain showers, three slow zones and two Full Course Yellows, the race is still moving at a decent pace.
Vector Sport take the ascendancy as troubles hit LMP2
Vector Sport has controlled the fourth hour in LMP2 after the challenge from the #34 Inter Europol Competition car has faltered due to a missing wheel just before the half-hour mark.
This leaves the #10 of Ryan Cullen in control of the field, ahead of the #37 COOL Racing car of Ritomo Miyata. While Miyata is bringing the gap down slowly, Cullen still enjoys a 40-second buffer at the front of the field.
Third is the #22 United Autosport car of Nolan Siegel, who remains in the top three despite picking up a drive-through penalty for contact with the #33 DKR Engineering car in the Ford Chicanes. United are over 80 seconds behind second place, and two minutes off the lead.
Completing the top five are the #24 Nielsen Racing car with Kyffin Simpson, and the #183 AF Corse car which leads Pro-Am, now with François Perrodo behind the wheel. Perrodo has a 26-second gap over the next car in the class, the #14 AO by TF car, which currently has Alex Quinn at the wheel.
It was a chaotic fourth hour in LMP2, with a smattering of incidents in short succession changing the shape of the race.
The leader at the turn of the last hour, the #34 Inter Europol Competition car, came into the pits at 7:25 pm local time missing the front left wheel. At this stage it is not known what happened to the wheel, or the reason for the missing wheel, but a new wheel was fitted, and that car was sent on its way.
Unfortunately, another stop shortly after dropped them off the lead lap in LMP2.
Only moments later, the #45 Crowdstrike by APR car was seen running slowly on the Mulsanne Straight. George Kurtz managed to limp the car all the way to the pit lane, where it was fixed and returned to the circuit. That car is back on track but is now two laps down.
While Kurtz was attempting to limp to the lane, there was a moment of contact between the #22 United Autosports car and the #33 DKR Engineering car in the Ford Chicane. Nolan Siegel in the #22 looked to make a move on Rene Binder in the #33, but when the door wasn’t kept open, Siegel slammed on the brakes, spinning his Oreca 07, and collecting Binder in the process. Both cars continued, and Siegel was handed a drive-through penalty for his involvement in the incident.
In better news for United, the #23 United Autosport car was returned to the track with a new Alternator after a one-hour, 24-minute pit stop.
Rossi to the lead in LMGT3!
The fourth hour in LMGT3 has seen a bigger presence of Bronze drivers settling into a rhythm in dry conditions.
Ahmad Al Harthy led most of the hour for Team WRT, and the #46 BMW M4 GT3 pitted to switch to Valentino Rossi for his first Le Mans 24 Hours race stint.
Manthey EMA’s #92 Porsche inherited the lead, with Yasser Shahin aboard for his inaugural race stint, but the Porsche’s stop returned the lead to Rossi, the seven-time MotoGP champion who, at the interval, is now leading his class at Le Mans.
JMW Motorsport’s #66 Ferrari has clawed back to second place after a period of flux with driver changes, with Salih Yoluc chasing the leading BMW, and Rossi finding a rhythm though and edging a gap of three seconds.
Shahin is aboard the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche in third, eight seconds behind, with Sarah Bovy’s #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini closing the gap in fourth, currently down to three seconds.
A left front axle issue for Zacharie Robichon has put the #77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang into its garage.
