Racing Resumed in Hour 16; Drama for Manthey

The 24 Hours of Le Mans returned to racing conditions in the 16th hour after a lengthy safety car due to rain , while LMGT3 frontrunner Manthey PureRxcing went into the garage shortly after the restart.

Ryo Hirakawa took the restart aboard the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid and opened up a gap of nearly three seconds over the No. 6 Porsche 963 of Laurens Vanthoor, although the Belgian has slightly chipped away at that advantage since.

The No. 50 and No. 83 Ferrari 499Ps held third and fourth with Nicklas Nielsen and Robert Kubica at the wheel, while Alex Lynn completed the top five aboard the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R.

The No. 7 Toyota, which took the restart in fourth, has dropped out of the top ten after Nyck de Vries pitted shortly after the restart complaining of visibility issues.

In LMGT3, frontrunners and championship leaders Manthey PureRxcing suffered a significant setback when the car was pushed into the garage with Klaus Bachler at the wheel.

A team spokesperson told Sportscar365 that the car had been suffering from a gearbox issue.

Bachler’s No. 92 Porsche 911 GT3 R led the race at the restart, although was overtaken by the sister No. 91 machine in the hands of Richard Lietz.

While Lietz maintained the lead with an advantage of some 25 seconds over the No. 78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F GT3  of Timur Boguslavskiy, the No. 92 car has plummeted out of the top ten in class.

In LMP2, Ben Barnicoat maintained the lead at the restart aboard the No. 183 AF Corse Oreca 07 Gibson, while Malthe Jakobsen has moved up to second place behind the wheel of the No. 37 Cool Racing machine.

The Danish driver overtook both United Autosports driver Bijoy Garg and the No. 10 Vector Sport Oreca of Stephane Richelmi and now sits 17.4 seconds down on Barnicoat.