The privateer #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P is out of contention for the overall victory with just three hours left to run in the 92nd annual 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The trio of Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman, and Ye Yifei, has been one of the surprises of the race – leading and overcoming a self-inflicted stop/go penalty to return to the lead fight. But that changed just at the top of the last hour.
Smoke began to billow out of the brakes of the #83 as it came in for a scheduled pit stop, and after some diagnosis, the #83 was wheeled back into the garage with a hybrid system issue – and it’s been in its garage ever since.
At the interval, there are four manufacturers running inside the top four, led by a very interesting leader: The #2 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R of Alex Palou is still off-sequence with the trailing #50 Ferrari AF Corse 499, #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid, and #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963.
But the ‘blue deuce’ was leading at the top of the hour, by around six seconds to the #50 Ferrari of Miguel Molina. What’s more, Palou recently reset the fastest lap of the race at 3:28.838, showing that there is pace in the Cadillac and the American marque’s challenge may not be a pipedream!
The driver change from James Calado to Molina gave the #8 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi the lead among the main group, but now the Toyota has changed drivers to Brendon Hartley, giving Ferrari the advantage back by about 12 seconds.
Behind them, the #6 Penske Porsche of Kevin Estre has its hands full trying to hold back the #51 factory Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi in a strong battle for fourth.
There are still nine cars on the overall lead lap after 21 hours of racing, a group completed by the #7 Toyota of Jose Maria Lopez, #12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche of Callum Ilott, #5 Porsche Penske of Michael Christensen and #38 JOTA Porsche of Oliver Rasmussen.
The #7 Toyota had another slow puncture, this time on the right front wheel. Kamui Kobayashi had reset the fastest lap of the race from Palou, at 3:28.756.
Recently, the crash-damaged #311 Whelen Cadillac Racing car returned to the race, after spending over 100 minutes in the garage for repairs following Pipo Derani’s crash at Indianapolis. The red Cadillac is now 30 laps off the lead but intends to try and run to the finish.
And with umbrellas going up at the west end of the Circuit de la Sarthe and dark clouds looming all around, there may still be more surprises to come!
Tyre strategy propels IDEC Sport to LMP2 lead
The #28 IDEC Sport ORECA 07 with Reshad de Gerus at the wheel holds an 11-second lead with three hours left, after jumping the #34 Inter Europol Competition and #10 Vector Sport cars in the last sequence of pit stops.
Both Inter Europol and Vector Sport changed tyres at the last stop, while the IDEC Sport car had done so the pit stop prior, allowing the IDEC Sport car a much shorter pit stop.
While the #28 exited the pits with almost a 20-second advantage, Vladislav Lomko and the chasing pack have reduced that gap down to just 11 seconds.
Third is now the #37 COOL Racing car, with Malthe Jakobsen having just relieved Ritomo Miyata and putting in a great stint to reel in Ryan Cullen for third. Jakobsen and is right on the tail of Lomko for second. Nolan Siegel in the #22 United Autosport car has also passed Cullen to take fourth place, with Cullen sitting in fifth in the Vector Sport car.
Sitting in sixth and leading Pro-Am is still the #183 AF Corse car, with Ben Barnicoat still enjoying a lap buffer over the next Pro-Am car, the #14 AO by TF car in seventh place. A further lap back is third in LMP2 Pro-Am, still the #33 DKR Engineering car.
The lead six are pitting in two groups, separated by two laps. It remains to be seen at this point whether the later stoppers – the #22 United, the #37 COOL Racing, and the #183 AF Corse – will be able to save a pit stop come the end of the race. In any case, pit strategy, driver strategy, and tyre strategy will still play a significant part in the last three hours of the race.
Schuring holding off Farfus in LMGT3
Augusto Farfus locked on to the back of Morris Schuring’s leading #91 Manthey EMA Porsche. The Brazilian was in typical attack mode, as the #31 BMW M4 LMGT3 lifted its wheels through the Ford Chicane as the gap came down to less than a second.
But Schuring’s defence was solid, the young Dutch driver responding with improvements that have drawn the #91 Porsche’s lead back to just under two seconds.
The battle for third place in LMGT3 is shaping up well, with the LM GT3 contest providing no less close competition into the final hours of Le Mans as the LMGTE class it replaces.
Iron Dames’ injury substitute Rahel Frey has hauled the #85 Lamborghini Huracan LMGT3 Evo2 into contention throughout the morning – and even led briefly earlier in the race.
Third position swung back and forth between Frey and Dennis Olsen’s #88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang, with Esteban Masson’s #87 Akkodis ASP Lexus making it a three-way challenge. Frey set the Iron Dames’ fastest lap of the race on lap 237, a 3:59.764.
