Toyota Holds Narrow Lead Over Porsche at Halfway

Toyota held a narrow lead over Porsche in the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the halfway mark, as the race was neutralized by a safety car for the second time amid worsening rain.

With 12 hours of racing complete, the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Brendon Hartley led the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 of Kevin Estre by 7.7 seconds, with both drivers pitting under the safety car shortly before the 12-hour mark.

The arrival of more rain at the start of the hour prompted the entire Hypercar field to switch over to wet tires, with Estre cutting down a 20-second lead that Hartley inherited from Sebastien Buemi in the difficult conditions.

Estre had got the advantage down to a little over 10 seconds when the safety car was called when Jack Aitken spun and beached the No. 311 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R in the gravel at the Porsche Curves.

Pitstops under the safety car for the No. 7 Toyota and No. 50 Ferrari 499P just before the halfway mark promoted the No. 2 Cadillac of Alex Palou to third place ahead of the No. 51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi.

Jose Maria Lopez was shuffled down to fifth in the No. 7 car ahead of Miguel Molina’s No. 50 Ferrari, with the No. 83 Ferrari that served a 30-second stop-and-hold penalty some hours earlier circulating in seventh in the hands of Yifei Ye.

The safety car allowed several cars that had dropped off the lead lap to gain their laps back, meaning 11 cars were on the lead lap at halfway – including both Hertz Team JOTA Porsches and the second of the Chip Ganassi Racing-run Cadillacs.

In LMP2, the Pro-Am-entered No. 183 AF Corse Oreca 07 Gibson of Nico Varrone held the advantage, having enjoyed a lead of close to two minutes before the safety car.

Lorenzo Fluxa was second in the No. 37 Cool Racing Oreca, while the No. 34 Inter Europol Competition car that had lost ground with a loose wheel early in the race was back up to third place.

The remaining cars on the lead lap were the No. 22 United Autosports, No. 10 Vector Sport and No. 28 IDEC Sport cars.

CrowdStrike Racing by APR was eliminated from contention in the 12th hour when Colin Braun lost his left-rear wheel, becoming the third retirement in the class following the Duqueine and Proton Competition cars.

A spate of LMGT3 pitstops under the safety car promoted the No. 59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Nicolas Costa into the lead at halfway ahead of the No. 92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Alex Malykhin.

Manthey’s second car, the No. 91 of Yasser Shahin, ran third ahead of the best of the Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3s, the No. 78 car of Timur Boguslavskiy, and the No. 95 United McLaren of Nico Pino.

An off for Ahmad Al Harthy in the No. 46 WRT BMW M4 GT3 at the Forest Esses during a rain shower in the ninth hour put an end to the race for the car he shares with Valentino Rossi and Maxime Martin.

The No. 77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 that had spent hours in the garage earlier in the race for a steering rack change was punted into the gravel by David Heinemeier Hansson’s Nielsen Racing LMP2 car in the 11th hour.