Ferrari Solidifies Control at Six-Hour Mark

Ferrari strengthened its grip on the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the quarter-distance mark, with its trio of 499Ps occupying the first three positions, headed by the No. 50 car of Miguel Molina, after six hours of racing.

Following Antonio Fuoco’s pass on Mathieu Jaminet for the lead in the third hour, Ferrari’s superiority over the Hypercar competition in race trim continued to show, with Laurens Vanthoor in the No. 6 engaging in a three-way battle with the No. 51 car of Antonio Giovinazzi and the satellite No. 83 car of Robert Kubica.

Despite his best efforts amid some frantic action, including one moment where all three cars ran three-wide, Vanthoor was passed by Kubica on the four-hour mark, with Giovinazzi soon following through to establish a Ferrari 1-2-3.

The order of the No. 83 and No. 51 cars was then swapped when Kubica earned a five-second pit stop penalty for going off track and gaining an advantage.

At the six hour mark, Molina led the way by 4.4 seconds over the the No. 83 car as Alessandro Pier Guidi had pitted the No. 51 car seconds before the top of the hour.

The No. 6 Porsche ran fourth, 27.8 seconds behind with Matt Campbell driving, while Toyota’s No. 8 GR010 Hybrid was fifth, 40.6 seconds off the leader.

Toyota’s GT-One-liveried No. 7 car suffered a further setback when Kamui Kobayashi incurred a monster 50-second stop-and-go penalty for exceeding the pit lane speed limit by 19 km/h.

Porsche’s No. 4 car ran sixth in the hands of Pascal Wehrlein, followed by the lead BMW M Hybrid V8 of Sheldon van der Linde in seventh.

Cadillac’s top runner was the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA car of Norman Nato in eighth, although the No. 311 Action Express Racing car had just made a routine pit stop just prior to the six-hour mark.

In LMP2, the No. 48 VDS Panis Racing Oreca 07 Gibson led the way with Oliver Gray at the wheel, with the team having been locked in battle with the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition car for the class lead for much of the past three hours.

Gray and Nick Yelloly took over at the wheel of their respective cars around the four-hour mark, the pair split by less than six seconds at that point, but a pit stop for Yelloly just shy of six hours handed the advantage to VDS.

Second and 3.1 seconds down was the No. 199 AO by TF car, with Louis Deletraz having taken back control and passing the Iron Lynx – Proton car of Reshad de Gerus for a net third.

The RLR MSport car that had led early in the hands of Patrick Pilet was delayed when Michael Jensen was rear-ended by Mathias Kaiser in the No. 25 Algarve Pro Racing entry, which sustained front-right damage in the process.

Debris from that accident and a crash for Giammarco Levorato at Tertre Rouge triggered the first full-course yellow of the race early in hour four.

Kelvin van der Linde led LMGT3 at the wheel of the No. 46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 that he had taken over from Valentino Rossi.

The South African driver enjoyed a 12-second advantage over Ryan Hardwick in the No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R, Hardwick having not long taken over from Riccardo Pera, who at one stage headed Rossi for the class lead.

Third was the No. 78 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 of Finn Gehrsitz, followed by the No. 21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 that had also enjoyed a spell in the lead before Bronze-ranked Francois Heriau returned to the wheel.

The second full-course yellow of the race occurred late in hour six when the No. 95 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Darren Leung came to a stop on track.

The No. 88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 became the first official retirement of the race following Levorato’s Tertre Rouge crash.

That was followed by the Iron Lynx’s No. 60 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, which dropped out after suffering a broken alternator belt that damaged an oil line, and the No. 95 McLaren, which was also officially retired with a drivetrain failure.