No. 51 Ferrari Regains Lead After Losing Time in Pits

The No. 51 Ferrari 499P recovered from a slow pit stop to regain the lead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans from Toyota during the 19th hour as the leading pair continued to battle.

James Calado held a one-minute advantage over Sebastien Buemi in the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid when both drivers pitted on the same lap, however a power cycle for the Ferrari caused it to spend almost two and a half minutes in the pit lane.

Buemi stayed in the Toyota and emerged just ahead of Alessandro Pier Guidi, but after a 15-minute chase, the Italian restored Ferrari AF Corse’s lead by overtaking the defending Le Mans winner around the outside into the second Mulsanne chicane.

The next round of stops saw the gap between the victory-contending cars increase to 20 seconds as Buemi stepped out for Brendon Hartley and Pier Guidi stayed in.

The margin remained consistent through to stops that took place before the four-hours-to-go mark, when Calado got back in the Ferrari and Hartley continued in the Toyota, bringing the gap down to three seconds with the checkered flag drawing closer.

Third-placed Earl Bamber was three minutes, 35 seconds behind Hartley aboard the No. 2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac Series-V.R, with his teammate Renger van der Zande in fourth.

Fabio Scherer led the LMP2 class for Inter Europol Competition heading into the last four hours, with the No. 41 Team WRT Oreca 07 Gibson being the closest challenger at a two-minute deficit.

Nico Pino was third for Duqueine Team, while Laurents Hoerr passed Tijmen van der Helm on the run down to Indianapolis at the 19-hour mark to put IDEC Sport in fourth.

As was the case in Hypercar, the lead gap in GTE-Am was tight heading into the closing stages, as Sarah Bovy held a slender seven-second advantage over Michael Dinan.

The Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR-19 and the ORT by TF Aston Martin Vantage GTE were also keeping wary of the Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, which sat 35 seconds behind the front-running pair after a recent driver change from Ben Keating to Nico Varrone.

The NASCAR Garage 56 project saw its chances of an overall top-30 result take a dent when the modified Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 underwent a brake change that cost 10 minutes.