The Grand Prix of Endurance is back, the City of Le Mans preparing to become motorsport’s ultimate battleground for the 94th time. Having defeated the defacto Kings of Le Mans and banished Porsche to the USA, Ferrari seek a fourth consecutive crown for the first time since 1964. Yet with the field having closed the performance gap and arriving hungrier than ever, it will be no easy task for the Scuderia – but it never has. Who will emerge from the Porsche curves at 4.00pm on Sunday? It’s time for the oldest endurance test of them all to begin… 

Hypercar

With green flag running returning to Le Mans JOTA lead 1-2 with both Cadillacs, #12 ahead of #38 with Toyotas #8 and #7 – recovering from a slow puncture yesterday – running in tandem behind as BMW ‘s #20 faltered through the night.

Once the safety car period was over Sebastian Buemi held the lead in his #8, ahead of the #12 with the three Cadillacs sandwiching the #20 BMW, with #38 with #101 completing the first five cars, as Le Mans could run once again at night after 45 minutes of neutralised racing.

Rast would fall to fourth as his BMW struggled in the colder conditions, losing out to both JOTA Cadillacs as aboard the #38 Earl Bamber charged forward into third having set the fastest lap of the race and closed the gap to just 3.5sec behind the sister #12 with the #101 waiting in the wings in fifth.

The real drama was behind though, as immediately after the safety car period ended the #50 pulled into the garage with significant floor damage, and Nicklas Nielsen being ejected from the car as it fell 8 laps down after a half-an-hour stay in the pits.

Meanwhile Alpine and Genesis moved up the order, with the former’s cars running sixth and seventh, #36 ahead of #35, the latter eighth and ninth with the #19 ahead of #17, both cars running without incident thus far. At one point the #19 was up to fourth, with Mathieu Jaminet running impressively during the cooler night temperatures, sandwiched in between the two Toyotas with just over fourteen hours left.

Meanwhile, having slowly worked its way back up the order following a slow puncture on Saturday afternoon the #7 Toyota was finding itself back in the fight, running comfortably inside the top ten. The sister car had an off at Mulsanne corner, bringing the #12 right up behind it, the gap barely a second and the lead battle now back on, having lost 12sec thanks to that excursion. Brendan Hartley put out a stout defense against Stevens and Bamber, who joined the battle for the lead in his #38.

Bamber was the first of the top three to pit, doing so a lap before Stevens and Hartley, who stayed out still separated by barely a second through their in-lap, the Kiwi unleashed out into the night on fresh soft tires. When Rene Rast came in with the #20 Sheldon Van Der Linde was tasked with bringing the BMW back into proper contention against the Cadillacs, with the advantage of fresh soft tyres to match both JOTA Cadillacs, sitting rougly 40sec back from Stevens’ #12.

LMP2

In LMP2 Inter Europol lead with the Pro/Am #343 of Nico Muller, ahead of the Duqueine #30 that’s recovered to second ahead of a surprise charge from Jonas Reid’s #9 Proton Competition entry. Ryan Cullen runs fourth as Lexus have fallen from their domineering pace earlier in the night, with the #43 Inter Europol machine fifth ahead of Forestier Racing By Panis’s #29.

Bijoy Garg led the way after the safety car restart in his #343, with Harry King just behind in the #9 and Jakub Schmiechowski following closely in the #43 for Inter Europol with the former race-leading Duqueine #30 now fourth.

After the next round of stops, there were two cars running alternate strategy, with Pietro Fittipaldi of Vector Sport’s #26 with Harry King aboard the #9 Proton, both running 1-2 with the Inter Europol crew duly resuming their lead of the field once the cars ahead had pitted. Meanwhile, the #30 had fallen from the lead since the safety car restart and now sat fifth in class with Richard Verschoor almost a second a lap slower.

Eventually once the stops sorted themselves out Jonas Reid found himself in the lead of the class aboard the #9 of Proton, ahead of the #30 of Duqueine and Nico Muller’s #343 Inter Europol with Ryan Cullen’s Vector Sport just ahead of Inter Europol’s Pro class #43.

LMGT3

In LMGT3 it’s still the pole-sitting Aston Martin that survived the shakeup casued by the safety car, which has brought both remaining Ferraris of Kessel Racing’s #74 and the AF Corse #21 up into the top five, with the #34 that started right at the rear of the class up to third.

Once racing resumed Mattia Drudi assumed the lead of the class in the #27 with Simon Mann’s #21 just behind, ahead of Dennis Marschall’s #74 with the best of the Lexus pairing in fourth, #87 and #78 being split by the #77 Ford of Eric Powell in fifth.

The #88 Ford seemingly was attracting all the bad luck, as after contact with the #54 that caused the safety car the crew were awarded a drive through penalty, dropping them to 15th.

Past the 15 hour mark Alessio Rovera now was up to fourth in the #21 with Johnny Adam aboard the #23 Aston Martin in fifth ahead of the #78 Lexus of Jack Hawksworth.

The delayed #91 Manthey Porsche and #79 Mercedes were still running, both last overall in the race and two laps down but still displaying the true Le Mans spirit – finish at all costs.

Rovera though closed up on Clemens Schmid in the #87 Lexus, the two now fighting for the lead as LMGT3 remained as close a class as it ever had been with Johnny Adam getting his #27 involved before Rovera and Adam with Charlie Eastwood’s #34 Corvette closing up as well.

Further back McLaren hadn’t found themselves running that high up the order, and then the 18th placed #58 of Garage 59 and Benjamin Goethe received a drive through penalty for failing to respect blue flags.

image credit: T GOUREAU, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons