Leading Ferrari Spins; No. 7 Toyota Out in Midnight Drama

The No. 51 Ferrari 499P lost its lead due to a trip into the gravel while the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid dropped out of contention after a multi-car incident in a flurry of drama at midnight in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

As an already eventful race reached the eight-hour mark, Alessandro Pier Guidi rotated his Ferrari in avoidance of the No. 911 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19 which had clashed with one of the Glickenhaus 007 Pipos at the Daytona Chicane.

Pier Guidi’s car needed to be helped out of the gravel by a recovery vehicle, which resulted in his 40-second advantage evaporating and the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 taking the lead.

The Ferrari driver resumed in fourth, with Nico Mueller hitting the front for Peugeot and Nicklas Nielsen moving the No. 50 Ferrari into second. Earl Bamber was third in the No. 2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, around 12 seconds behind Nielsen.

A few moments after Pier Guidi’s rotation, the No. 7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi was involved in a tangle with the JMW Motorsport Ferrari 488 GTE Evo and an Oreca 07 Gibson each from Alpine Elf Team and Graff Racing.

Kobayashi initially stopped at the Tertre Rouge incident site before continuing onto the Mulsanne Straight, where he halted again with terminal damage.

The events surrounding the accident were not immediately clear, although Louis Prette’s JMW Ferrari became partially airborne after contact with the prototype cars.

The sole remaining Toyota of last year’s winning No. 8 crew sat fifth as the third safety car period of the race was called to deal with the crash.

The first Hypercar to retire was Penske Motorsport No. 75 Porsche 963 which exited the race in the eighth hour after it stopped on track due to fuel pressure problems.

Floyd Vanwall Racing Team also had a setback when Esteban Guerrieri ended up in the gravel at the Esses. The ensuing slow zone benefited Mueller in the No. 94 Peugeot, whose deficit to the No. 51 Ferrari contracted by half a minute.

In LMP2, Jakub Smiechowski led for Inter Europol Competition with Robert Kubica running second in the No. 41 Oreca 07 Gibson.

Tom Blomqvist was circulating between the pair, but the United Autosports driver had an accident after a reported loss of brakes in the eighth hour.

Matteo Cairoli took control of the GTE-Am class for Team Project 1-AO, although the safety car period erased his one-minute lead over Iron Dames driver Michelle Gatting who was also in a Porsche 911 RSR-19.