Porsche’s Estre Out Front After Three Hours

Kevin Estre led the Qatar 1812km for Porsche Penske Motorsport with three hours of racing completed, while Ferrari saw both of its cars drop out of the top ten through separate setbacks.

The No. 6 Porsche 963 held a lead of some 30 seconds over the No. 93 Peugeot 9X8 of Mikkel Jensen, with the sister No. 5 Porsche in third position with Matt Campbell at the wheel.

Peugeot had led the race after a strong opening stint from Jensen’s co-driver Nico Mueller, but the Swiss driver then lost out when he ran wide through Turn 1 while navigating traffic.

This allowed Laurens Vanthoor to take advantage and move up the inside of Mueller, capturing the lead after 90 minutes of racing.

At roughly the same time, the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche of Norman Nato passed the No. 5 car of Michael Christensen for third as the Dane struggled with tire vibrations that eventually led to an earlier-than-planned pitstop.

However, a longer pitstop from the JOTA crew to take on new tires, as well as a recovery drive kickstarted by Campbell, saw the factory-entered Porsche move back ahead of the No. 12 machine shortly before the end of the third hour.

AF Corse’s No. 83 Ferrari 499P ran fifth with Yifei Ye at the wheel, ahead of the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Nyck de Vries and the second JOTA Porsche in the hands of Phil Hanson.

While the yellow-liveried Ferrari has maintained a position in the top ten throughout the opening hours of the race, the two factory-entered 499Ps both dropped down the order with separate setbacks.

First, Miguel Molina was given a drive-through penalty for crossing the white line at pit entry during an earlier stop, but this was followed by a bigger delay for the sister No. 51 car of James Calado.

After contact with the No. 59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, the rear wing section of Calado’s No. 51 Ferrari came loose and was left on the track.

While the race’s first Full Course Yellow was called to remove the wing, the Brit pitted to have it replaced but lost considerable time in the process. The No. 51 car now runs in 18th overall with Alessandro Pier Guidi at the wheel.

The No. 94 Peugeot made it way up into eighth after its opening lap spin, while the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R ran in ninth.

Cadillac’s Sebastien Bourdais put in a strong stint in the third hour, passing the No. 36 Alpine A424 of Mick Schumacher and the two BMW M Hybrid V8s of Robin Frijns and Raffaele Marciello before pressuring the No. 8 Toyota of Brendon Hartley.

Hartley has since dropped back to 12th, behind the No. 50 Ferrari of Nicklas Nielsen and Schumacher’s No. 36 Alpine.

In LMGT3, Joel Sturm heads a Manthey 1-2, with the German’s PureRxcing-branded No. 92 Porsche 911 GT3 R about 20 seconds ahead of the sister EMA-supported car driven by Morris Schuring.

D’station Racing driver Erwan Bastard held third place aboard the No. 777 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, ahead of the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 in the hands of Francesco Castellacci.

The No. 81 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, which started the race from pole in the hands of Tom van Rompuy, lost ten laps with a gearshift issue that saw Rui Andrade stranded at pit entry before the car was pushed into the garage.

With 101 laps completed, the race remains barely on target to reach the scheduled 335 laps before the time limit of ten hours is reached.