Toyota Versus Cadillac With Three Hours To Go

The battle for overall honors in the 24 Hours of Le Mans had boiled down to a straight duel between Toyota and Cadillac with three hours remaining in the FIA World Endurance Championship’s blue riband, as BMW fell back from the lead.

What had looked to be a four-car fight for the win between the two Toyota TR010s, the No. 12 Hertz JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R and the No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8 continued to evolve as the temperatures rose approaching midday at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

Robin Frijns led by four seconds in the 20th hour but lost ground with a messy entry to his pit stop, which dropped the BMW behind both Toyotas and the No. 12 Cadillac, with Norman Nato moving into the lead from Ryo Hirakawa’s No. 8 car.

That was how the order remained through the next round of stops, but in the 21st hour a full-course yellow for a stranded LMP2 car provided Brendon Hartley, taking over from Hirakawa, with the opportunity he needed to grab the lead.

Moments later, Nyck de Vries, taking over from Kamui Kobayashi in the No. 7 Toyota, sauntered up to the back of the No. 12 car and passed Nato with a bold divebomb at the inside of Mulsanne corner.

As the clock struck 1 p.m. local time, de Vries was right on the back of Hartley and requesting to his Toyota crew to be allowed through into the lead.

Nato had fallen five seconds behind the No. 12 Cadillac, while Sheldon van der Linde, replacing Frijns in the No. 20 BMW, was 20 seconds down in fourth.

Three more cars in Hypercar remained on the lead lap, with Antonio Giovinazzi fifth in the No. 51 Ferrari 499P ahead of Charles Milesi’s No. 35 Alpine A424 and the satellite No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kubica, which had been fifth until a recent stop.

Ferrari’s No. 50 car that had already dropped significant ground due to an earlier fire extinguisher problem was declared an official retirement amid electronic gremlins.

In LMP2, the Duqueine Team No. 30 Oreca 07 Gibson that controlled the class for much of the distance dropped out of the running with a sudden brake failure.

Richard Verschoor had not long taken over from Porsche factory driver Julien Andlauer, who had eked out a four-second gap over Reshad de Gerus’s No. 343 Inter Europol Competition car, when he was passed for the lead by de Gerus.

Not long after, as he was defending from Nick Yelloly’s No. 43 Inter Europol machine, Verschoor slowed suddenly having reported his brakes “exploded” on team radio, putting an end to the hopes of himself, Andlauer and Doriane Pin.

It put Inter Europol in a commanding position, de Gerus leading Yelloly by one second, with the No. 29 Forestier Racing by Panis car, which was launched back into podium contention by the last safety car, 29 seconds back with Ollie Gray at the wheel.

The No. 26 Vector Sport and No. 37 CLX Motorsport entries were the final cars on the lead lap in class, while the No. 4 CrowdStrike Racing by APR car was well on course to take the victory in the LMP2 Pro-Am subclass.

In LMGT3, the fight for the class win was being fought between the respective best cars from Corvette, Aston Martin and Lexus.

The pendulum had swung back in favor of the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo as Eduardo Barrichello leapfrogged the No. 33 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R that had its big lead eliminated by the safety car.

Barrichello had been closing in on Nicky Catsburg’s Corvette before the last round of pit stops, and he took the lead by staying on board as Catsburg made way for Edgar.

However, just before the 21-hour mark, Barrichello brought in the No. 23 car to hand over to Jonny Adam, which put Edgar back into the lead by around five seconds from the No. 78 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth.

Adam ran fourth behind the sister No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston of Zacharie Robichon.

Jose Maria Lopez rounded out the top five aboard the second of the ASP Lexus entries, the No. 87 car.