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Le Mans 24 Hours: Toyota maintains control at quarter-distance

Toyota continued to control the Le Mans 24 Hours, while the chasing Audis and Porsche kept themselves in the hunt by staying on the lead lap

Stephane Sarrazin edged the #7 TS040 HYBRID's lead up to one minute over the #2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Benoit Treluyer, but that was reduced by around 25 seconds when Audi decided to quadruple-stint a set of tyres towards the end of the hour.

Toyota decided against that strategy, instead putting on fresh tyres as Kazuki Nakajima took over from Sarrazin towards the end of the hour.

Brendon Hartley's Porsche 919 Hybrid and Lucas di Grassi's Audi traded places depending on their pitstops, with the #20 919 being out of sync after stopping with a suspected puncture earlier in the race.

The #35 OAK Ligier has control of LMP2, although Mark Shulzhitskiy brought the car into the pits for a scheduled stop shortly before the one-hour mark.

This gave the lead temporarily to the #46 TDS Ligier of Pierre Theriet, although that car, the #36 Signatech Alpine ORECA of Oliver Webber and the #34 Race Performance ORECA of Jon Lancaster were scheduled to pit and drop back behind behind the leading LIgier.

Corvette's control of the GTE class continued, despite Bruno Senna cutting the lead C7.R's advantage to less than half a minute.

Tommy Milner vacated the #74 car for Richard Westbrook at the start of the hour and the Briton maintained a 30-second advantage after the Aston Martin Vantage driver had slashed 15s from the Corvette's lead thanks to a shorter pitstop.

Senna had edged away from the Ferrari of Giancarlo Fisichella but did not have masses of breathing space as the Italian came back at the Brazilian in the closing minutes of the hour, before making a scheduled stop.

The second Corvette, driven by Jordan Taylor, moved back into the top by splitting the two Manthey Porsches, which have upped their pace but still languish in fourth and sixth.

In GTE Am, Aston Martin moved into formation with Christoffer Nygaard still ahead in the #98 Vantage but David Heinemeier Hansson his chief pursuer in the #95 car. The #53 Ram Ferrari, now in the hands of Mark Patterson, dropped back from second to fourth, behind Alexsey Basov's SMP 458 Italia.

POSITIONS AFTER 6 HOURS

Pos Cl       Car       Drivers                              Laps  Gap
 1. LMP1 #7  Toyota    Wurz/Sarrazin/Nakajima               88  
 2. LMP1 #2  Audi      Fassler/Lotterer/Treluyer            88  +    46.702s
 3. LMP1 #20 Porsche   Bernhard/Webber/Hartley              87  +      1 Lap
 4. LMP1 #1  Audi      Di Grassi/Gene/Kristensen            87  +    16.475s
 5. LMP1 #12 Rebellion Prost/Heidfeld/Beche                 84  +     4 Laps
 6. LMP1 #14 Porsche   Dumas/Jani/Lieb                      83  +     5 Laps
 7. LMP2 #35 Ligier    Brundle/Mardenborough/Shulzhitskiy   81  +     7 Laps
 8. LMP2 #46 Ligier    Thiriet/Badey/Gommendy               81  +    30.091s
 9. LMP2 #36 Alpine    Chatin/Panciatici/Webb               81  +    39.850s
10. LMP2 #34 Oreca     Frey/Mailleux/Lancaster              81  +    43.985s
11. LMP2 #26 Morgan    Rusinov/Pla/Canal                    80  +     8 Laps
12. LMP2 #24 Oreca     Rast/Charouz/Capillaire              80  +  1m23.076s
13. LMP2 #38 Zytek     Dolan/Tincknell/Turvey               80  +  2m14.906s
14. LMP1 #8  Toyota    Davidson/Lapierre/Buemi              80  +  2m19.955s
15. LMP2 #43 Morgan    Klien/Hirsch/Brandela                80  +  2m22.623s
16. LMP2 #47 Oreca     Howson/Bradley/Imperatori            79  +     9 Laps
17. LMP2 #33 Ligier    Cheng/Tung/Fong                      79  +  1m25.526s
18. LMP2 #50 Morgan    Ragues/Taylor/Ihara                  78  +    10 Laps
19. GTEP #74 Chevrolet Gavin/Milner/Westbrook               77  +    11 Laps
20. GTEP #97 Aston     Turner/Mucke/Senna                   77  +    28.774s
21. GTEP #51 Ferrari   Bruni/Vilander/Fisichella            77  +    37.300s
22. GTEP #91 Porsche   Pilet/Bergmeister/Tandy              77  +  1m01.816s
23. GTEP #73 Chevrolet Magnussen/Garcia/Taylor              77  +  1m14.261s
24. GTEP #92 Porsche   Holzer/Makowiecki/Lietz              77  +  1m16.763s
25. GTEA #98 Aston     Dalla Lana/Lamy/Nygaard              77  +  1m47.332s
26. GTEA #95 Aston     Poulsen/Heinemeier-Hansson/Thiim     76  +    12 Laps
27. LMP2 #42 Zytek     Kimber-Smith/McMurry/Dyson           76  +     5.825s
28. GTEA #72 Ferrari   Bertolini/Shaitar/Basov              76  +    11.597s
29. GTEA #53 Ferrari   Mowlem/Patterson/Hamilton            76  +  1m02.231s
30. GTEA #61 Ferrari   Perez-Companc/Cioci/Venturi          75  +    13 Laps
31. GTEA #77 Porsche   Dempsey/Foster/Long                  75  +    10.771s
32. GTEA #88 Porsche   Ried/Bachler/Al Qubaisi              75  +    14.428s
33. GTEA #90 Ferrari   Montecalvo/Roda/Ruberti              75  +  1m12.102s
34. LMP2 #29 Morgan    Schell/Leutwiller/Roussel            75  +  1m38.562s
35. GTEA #57 Ferrari   Krohn/Jonsson/Collins                75  +  2m34.561s
36. GTEA #70 Ferrari   Nakano/Ehret/Rich                    75  +  2m38.799s
37. GTEA #67 Porsche   Maris/Merlin/Helary                  74  +    14 Laps
38. GTEA #75 Porsche   Perrodo/Collard/Palttala             74  +    45.549s
39. GTEA #58 Ferrari   Barthez/Pons/Ayari                   74  +  1m18.211s
40. GTEA #60 Ferrari   Mann/Case/Giammaria                  74  +  2m28.019s
41. LMP1 #13 Rebellion Kraihamer/Belicchi/Leimer            73  +    15 Laps
42. GTEA #66 Ferrari   Al Faisal/Neiman/Pumpelly            73  +  16m34.029s
43. GTEA #76 Porsche   Narac/Armindo/Hallyday               72  +    16 Laps
44. GTEP #79 Porsche   MacNeil/Curtis/Bleekemolen           72  +  1m11.638s
45. LMP2 #27 Oreca     Zlobin/Salo/Ladygin                  71  +    17 Laps
46. GTEA #62 Ferrari   Mallegol/Bachelier/Blank             70  +    18 Laps
47. GTEP #52 Ferrari   Griffin/Parente/Leo                  58  +    30 Laps
48. LMP2 #48 Oreca     Berthon/Gonzalez/Chandhok            50  +    38 Laps
49. LMP2 #41 Zytek     Munemman/Latif/Winslow               31  Retired
50. GTEP #71 Ferrari   Rigon/Kaffer/Beretta                 28  Retired
51. LMP1 #3  Audi      Albuquerque/Bonanomi/Jarvis          25  Retired
52. GTEA #81 Ferrari   Wyatt/Rugolo/Bird                    22  Retired
53. LMP2 #37 Oreca     Ladygin/Minassian/Mediani            9   Retired
54. CDNT #0  Nissan    Ordonez/Reip/Motoyama                5   Retired

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