Fassler Corvette Crashes Out in Hour 6

The No. 64 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R has crashed out of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, triggering the second safety car of the FIA World Endurance Championship season finale.

Marcel Fassler was running eighth in GTE-Pro when the right-rear of his Corvette Racing machine clipped the left-front of the No. 88 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR through the latter part of the high-speed Porsche Curves sequence.

Satoshi Hoshino, the driver of the Porsche, escaped contact with the barriers while Fassler’s car hit the right-side retaining wall.

After the accident, Corvette program manager Doug Fehan reported to Radio Le Mans that Fassler had got out of the car under his own steam.

The safety car was brought out for 16 minutes while a team of marshals cleared the debris.

With its No. 64 car out, Corvette’s No. 63 machine is running in third after the No. 93 Porsche pitted under the safety car from the final provisional podium spot.

The class is being led by the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo with Daniel Serra behind the wheel, while Laurens Vanthoor is second in the No. 91 Porsche 911 RSR.

Serra lost the lead when he pitted under the first safety car of the race, which occurred at the start of the sixth hour, but re-took the lead at the restart.

This intervention was caused by the LMP2-class RLR MSport Oreca 07 Gibson, which ran wide and into the tire barriers at Tertre Rouge.

The No. 7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid continues to run out front overall, although the intervention has reduced Jose Maria Lopez’s lead over his teammate Kazuki Nakajima from over a minute to 23 seconds.

Toyota’s No. 8 car lost time during the first safety car period when Nakajima was held up by a red light at the end of the pit lane, pushing out the gap between the hybrid LMP1 cars over the 60-minute threshold.

The LMP2 lead changed a few minutes before the Corvette accident, with Andre Negrao in the No. 36 Signatech Alpine A470 Gibson sweeping around Roman Rusinov in the No. 26 Aurus 01 Gibson along the Mulsanne straight.