Le Mans 8hr report: Drama at Le Mans after Ferrari/BMW Collision; Manthey Ahead in LMGT3; United Autosports Lead LMP2
The Headlines after 8hrs at Le Mans
Hypercar – No.83 AF Corse leads
No.83 AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Robert Shwartzman continued to lead as darkness, a lengthy safety car and more rain arrives at Le Mans
Robert Kubica took over the Ferrari 499P cockpit from Ye and was able to extend the lead when the factory Ferraris chose to stay on slicks in the increasingly wet conditions
That dropped them further behind the leader and allowed the No.5 Porsche Penske of Frederic Makowiecki, Matt Campbell and Michael Christensen through in to second place
Kubica had a fright in the seventh hour when a gearbox alarm sounded on his dash but team were unfazed by the scare and he continued in the lead
But then the race pivoted as Kubica was in contact with the No.15 BMW driven by Dries Vanthoor on the Mulsanne Straight at 22.35. This resulted in Vanthoor impacting the armco barrier forcing him to retire from the race
The incident was placed under investigation but a decision was still being decided upon as midnight arrived
The first safety car of the race occupied the track for over 90-minutes while barrier repairs were completed. This bunched the field up and the order as midnight arrived was:
1 No.83 AF Corse Ferrari (Kubica)
2 No.5 Porsche Penske (Makowiecki)
3 No.8 Toyota (Hirakawa)
4 No.50 Ferrari (Nielsen)
5 No.6 Porsche Penske (Vanthoor)
6 No.2 Cadillac (Lynn)
7 No.51 Ferrari AF Corse (Giovinazzi)
8 No.12 Hertz Jota Porsche (Nato)
9 No.7 Toyota (De Vries)
10 No.311 Action Express (Derani)
No.3 Cadillac Racing Hypercar had a big scare in the seventh hour as Sebastien Bourdais lost the car on slick tyres at Indianapolis and lost 30-seconds. The yellow car placed 11th after eight hours
Le Mans was over for Alpine as both the No.35 and No.36 A424 Hypercars retired as Ferdinand Habsburg pulled off at Arnage and Nicolas Lapierre stopped the No.36 car in the pits with a similar technical issue to No.35
LMGT3 – No.92 Manthey Porsche leads
No.92 Manthey PureRxcing leads LMGT3 as Joel Sturm heads the No.46 Team WRT BMW driven by Ahmed Al Harthy
Third in the al-new category for the WEC this season is the No.87 Akkodis ASP Lexus that led in the second hour with super sub Jack Hawksworth in the cockpit
Iron Dames Lamborghini place fourth but lost time after being tipped in to a spin at Porsche Curves in the sixth hour
Sarah Bovy was hit by Matthieu Jaminet in the No.4 Porsche Penske 963 Hypercar. Jaminet receives a drive-through penalty for the offence
The rest of the top ten in LMGT3 is made up of: 5th - No.88 Proton Ford Mustang; 6th No.59 United Autosports McLaren; 7th No.91 Manthey EMA Porsche; 8th No.27 Heart of Racing Aston; 9th No.155 Spirit of Race Ferrari; 10th No.95 United Autosports McLaren
Pole-sitting Inception Racing McLaren hit trouble and fell out of contention with a technical
No.77 Proton Ford Mustang spends many laps in the pits after experiencing a broken steering rack
Claudio Schiavone crashed on the Mulsanne Straight but the Iron Lynx Lamborghini team was able to repair the car and get back in to the race albeit many laps down
LMP2 – No.22 United Autosports Leads
No.22 United Autosports entry driven by Le Mans rookie Bijoy Garg heads the Nielsen Racing Oreca-Gibson car with David Heinemeier Hansson aboard
The LMP2 class had been led by the Vector Sports team for most of hours 4-8 but the safety car period sees shake-up with Patrick Pilet in the Vector running fourth after the safety car pass around
Third is the No.37 Cool Racing entry, which survived a spin in the pitlane with Lorenzo Fluxa at the wheel. But Malthe Jakobsen, Ritomo Miyata and Fluxa drive strong stints to sit in strong position behind the Vector Oreca-Gibson
The rest of the top six in LMP2 sees the AO by TF Sport car of Louis Deletraz in fifth ahead of the AF Corse entry of Francois Perrodo
The No.9 Proton Competition LMP2 car of Bengt Viscaal, Maceo Capietto and Jonas Ried retires in the seventh hour when it pulls off the track
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