Sure enough, 13 cars were given drive-through penalties for speeding in a yellow flag zone, including the #51 and #83 Ferrari 499Ps.
Antonio Giovinazzi still leads at Le Mans with seven hours to go in the red #51 factory car, ahead of the yellow #83 car of Robert Kubica, who’ve both just taken over their respective cars within the last hour, then had to serve their drive-throughs.
Other notables hit with drive-through penalties included the LMGT3-leading #92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche 911, another top GT contender in the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage, and a few top LMP2 cars including the #9 Iron Lynx-Proton ORECA.
It hasn’t dropped Giovinazzi and Kubica from the top two and, in fact, Kubica recently reset the fastest lap of the race at 3:26.562. The Polish driver is less than 3 seconds adrift of the #51 and on the team radio pressing for permission to challenge the factory lead. The #50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco has now moved back up to third behind them albeit, as yet, some way out of touch of the leaders.
The #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Matt Campbell has slotted into fourth after its pit stop, ahead of the #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 HYBRID of Brendon Hartley in fifth. Dries Vanthoor, who previously held the fastest lap, is sixth in the #20 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8.
The penalties have done even less damage to the #92 Manthey Porsche 911’s lead in LMGT3: Riccardo Pera is now aboard with close to a minute’s advantage over the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 in second. Francois Heriau has given way after doing his required six hours of driving, Simon Mann now in the car.
Then it’s the #81 TF Sport Corvette of Charlie Eastwood, and the two Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC Fs of Jose Maria Lopez (#87) and Jack Hawksworth (#78).
LMP2 is still led by the #43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA 07 ahead of the #48 VDS Panis Racing ORECA, Tom Dillmann ahead of Oliver Gray.
Paul Lafargue has pitted from third in the #28 IDEC Sport ORECA but he has a big cushion to the #9 Iron Lynx-Proton car of Maceo Capietto, and the #199 AO by TF car of LMP2 Pro/Am leader, Dane Cameron.
As the leaders had their drama, the #311 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R lost power near turn one, and for Frederik Vesti and company it was the end of the road.
The red Cadillac joined its fellow IMSA invitee at Wayne Taylor Racing as the second premier class retirement of the race, and the tenth in total, after a Slow Zone was deployed to lift the car away.
The #85 Iron Dames Porsche LMGT3 is back out on track, though planted to last in LMGT3 among all remaining runners in what has turned out to be another luckless Le Mans for Les Dames.
There was also a collision between Bernardo Sousa and Derek DeBoer which sent the latter spinning in his #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin. That spin, and a ten-second pit stop penalty for a pit stop violation, were insults after the #10’s big injury very early on, in which the car dropped out of the lead fight due to an engine sensor problem.
George Kurtz’s stint in the #45 Algarve Pro Racing ORECA went from bad to worse in the last hour: Having already had to serve a drive-through penalty for a slow zone violation, he then had to take a ten-second stop/go penalty for speeding in the pits while serving the previous penalty.
And most recently, Jules Gounon spun off at Mulsanne Corner and into the gravel. His #36 Alpine A424 was beached, leading to a Full Course Yellow just minutes ago, as the car was craned out of harm’s way.
