With the safety car lasting the entire hour due to barrier repairs for the #15 BMW shunt, there was no on-track action to report on.
Under safety car, there were some items of note though.
Once the race gets going again, we are going to see the top 12 cars in Hypercar on the lead lap, all bunched up, as well as the top seven in LMP2 and top 12 in LMGT3.
The #83 AF Corse Ferrari leads overall with the #5 Porsche second and #8 Toyota third, the #22 United Autosports ORECA now leads LMP2 and Pure Rxcing’s Porsche is up front in LMGT3.
United Autosports shakes out to class lead under safety car
The lengthy safety car for barrier repairs has seen pit stops occur at the top of the LMP2 field, leaving the #22 United Autosport car with Bijoy Garg in the lead of the race. This was due to pit stops for the leading pair of cars – the #37 Cool Racing and #10 Vector Sports – dropping them to the following safety car train behind the #22 prior to the merge.
The #24 Nielsen Racing car is now in second, also benefitting from the pit stops from the top two. The #37 Cool Racing car is in third, with the #10 Vector Sport car in fourth.
Leading Pro-Am is the #14 AO by TF far in 5th place, with the #183 just behind for overall and Pro-Am positions. The #34 Inter Europol Competition car is the last car on the lead lap, in 7th place overall.
The pass around has just been completed, which has effectively cleansed the field in terms of lapped runners. It would be a herculean effort for any of the cars off the lead lap to recover to be in the mix later in the race.
In the last hour, there has also been confirmation of the #9 Proton Competition car, which came to a stop on the exit of the Porsche Curves, just before the end of the 6th hour.
That means there are now five cars out of the race.
These are: the #54 AF Corse Ferrari (crash damage), #35 Alpine (engine failure), #9 Proton (mechanical), #36 Alpine (engine failure) and #15 WRT BMW (crash damage).
Porsche leads GT3 as 12 cars stay on the lead lap
It has been a similar story in LMGT3, with the leader at the last hour – the #46 WRT BMW – electing to do a pit stop under Safety Car, dropping them behind the following safety car train, moving the #92 Manthey PureRxcing car to the lead of the race.
Joel Sturm leads the field, with Ahmed Al Harthy just behind in the #46, and the #87 Lexus of Jack Hawksworth.
With the pass around completed, there are now 12 cars on the lead lap.
In the last hour, we have seen the return of the #60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini after Schiavoni’s off earlier, and the #77 Proton Mustang after a long pit stop to repair the steering rack. Both are many laps down, but are both circulating back on track.
The pass around has taken significantly longer due to rain covering half of the circuit, from the Porsche Curves out to Mulsanne, but no-one has elected to come in for wets and give up their spot in the safety car train.
The safety car period looks set to end in Hour 9, once it does, this race could produce more of a fireworks display than the one currently ongoing in the infield!
