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Le Mans 24H, Hour 16: Ferrari Maintains Sunday Morning 1-2

Inter Europol holds LMP2 lead, Manthey 1st Phorm extends GT3 advantage

Eight hours remain in the 93rd 24 Hours of Le Mans, where the #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P, currently driven by James Calado, has a two-second gap to the yellow #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Philip Hanson in second.

At the top of the hour the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R of Will Stevens was running third after the #50 Ferrari of Nicklas Nielsen and #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 HYBRID of Sebastien Buemi came to the pits.

Once Stevens pits, it’ll move the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Laurens Vanthoor up into third, on a different pit sequence from the other Hypercar leaders.

Inter Europol Competition and driver Tom Dillmann are still out in front in LMP2. The #43 ORECA 07-Gibson leads Franck Perera in the #48 VDS Panis Racing car by over 20 seconds.

The #28 IDEC Sport car, the sole-surviving car after the #18’s retirement, runs in third, ahead of the #9 Iron Lynx-Proton car, while the #199 AO by TF ORECA leads LMP2 Pro/Am and is fifth in LMP2 outright.

And the #92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche leads LMGT3 by a significant margin in the hands of Richard Lietz.

Francois Heriau is still trying to knock out his minimum drive time in the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari, currently in second, as is Tom van Rompuy in the #81 TF Sport Corvette in third. The #87 Akkodis ASP Lexus of Jose Maria Lopez and the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin complete the top five in class.

But things could get interesting in the next hour as 16 cars are under investigation for speeding in a yellow flag zone, when the #85 Iron Dames Porsche LMGT3 broke down momentarily along the run to Indianapolis.

This includes the two leading Ferrari 499Ps, and the LMGT3 leader.

In addition, the #311 Whelen Cadillac had gone to the garage for a precautionary brake change, adding more woes to a troubled Sunday for the invited team from IMSA.