After 5 hours of green flag running a full course yellow to allow recovery of the stationary #13 AWA Duqueine, Matt Bell at the Le Mans Chicane with suspected brake trouble, bunched up the field, and allowed those that would otherwise have needed a splash at the end to get back onto a more routing late race strategy.
DPi saw the remaining four undelayed cars effectively nose to tail, the #10 Acura leading, but ceding the advantage to a great run from Tom Blomqvist in the #60 MSR Acura, with Loïc Duval also passing Taylor, up to second before dropping back again, and losing a place too to Mike Conway in the #31 Cadillac.
The penultimate pit stop cycle came just before the top of the hour, the leading MSR crew putting Helio Castroneves in for the run to the flag.
GTD Pro saw a Porsche pair nose to tail, Matthieu Jaminet in the #9 Pfaff 911 GT3R fending off a very spirited attack from Laurens Vanthoor in the #2 KCMG Porsche.
Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #62 Risi Ferrari and Jack Hawksworth in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus were a few seconds back while the Porsches tussled but not closing on the 911 pair.
LMP2 saw a confirmed retirement in the 23rd hour for the #11 PR1 Mathiesen Oreca and a three car battle for the win there too with Colton Herta in the #81 DragonSpeed Oreca with mirrors full of Louis Deletraz in the #8 Tower Motorsports car, Mikkel Jensen hanging in there too in the #52 PR 1 Mathiesen car.
LMP3 was the only class at this point with a telling advantage for the leading car, Felipe Fraga a lap lead in the #74 Riley Robinson Ligier with second place closely contested between Colin Braun in the #54 CORE Ligier and Joao Barbosa in the #33 Sean Creech JS P320.
Finally, GTD, the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Jan Heylen, tucked in behind the GTD Pro lead battle with Nicklas Nielsen (#21 AF Corse Ferrari) and Andy Lally (#44 Magnus Racing Aston martin) looking to try to make a fight of it between each other, and for the win
