Le Mans 24 Hours: Lead battle down to two as #1 Audi hits trouble
The Le Mans 24 Hours lead battle was reduced to two cars in the 13th hour of the race, as the #1 Audi hit trouble
Tom Kristensen - who had been keeping the second R18 on the lead lap behind the #7 Toyota and the #2 Audi - suddenly slowed on the Mulsanne straight with a loss of drive.
The car almost came to a halt before Kristensen was able to find some power and tour back to the pits, losing nearly four minutes.
After a stay of nearly seven minutes in the pits the Audi crew carried out a fuel injector change, and the #1 entry rejoined the action with Lucas di Grassi at the wheel, having lost third place to the #20 Porsche.
The Brazilian was then forced to make an unscheduled stop just a few laps later due to a puncture.
The battle at the front of the race hotted up during the hour too, as Andre Lotterer made inroads against Stephane Sarrazin's race-leading #7 Toyota.
Lotterer brought the gap down from just under two minutes to as low as 1m33s, at which point Sarrazin was able to prevent him from gaining any more time.
A driver change and new tyres for the #2 Audi meant that its stop just before the hour mark was 40 seconds longer than the Toyota's, allowing Sarrazin to stretch the lead to a safer margin again.
Another LMP1 car hit trouble in the form of the #14 Porsche, which crawled round in very similar style to the #1 Audi as Marc Lieb coaxed it back to the pits, where mechanics discovered that the car had suffered a fuel pressure problem for the second time in the race.
In LMP2, the #35 OAK-run Ligier continued to control the race, with Jann Mardenborough taking over from Alex Brundle and picking up the laptimes battle with the chasing #36 Signatech car of Paul-Loup Chatin.
Ferrari broke Aston Martin's stranglehold on the GTE element as Giancarlo Fisichella jumped ahead of Stefan Mucke.
Alternate strategies had handed Mucke a sizable lead while Fisichella and Richard Westbrook waited to be fitted with new tyres.
While that did not offer enough of an advantage to overturn Mucke's 27-second advantage, Fisichella did blast into a 15-second lead when Mucke made his stop.
That was slightly lengthier than normal, with Turner get in a new set of boots in the process, and though he dropped behind the AF Corse 458 Italia driver in the process Westbrook's Corvette C7.R slipped further back.
While it lost the GTE Pro lead, Aston continues to dominate GTE Am.
David Heiemeier Hansson holds a lap of a full lap over the SMP and #61 AF Corse Ferrari.
POSITIONS AFTER 13 HOURS Pos Cl Car Drivers Laps Gap 1. LMP1 #7 Toyota Wurz/Sarrazin/Nakajima 204 2. LMP1 #2 Audi Fassler/Lotterer/Treluyer 204 + 2m12.517s 3. LMP1 #20 Porsche Bernhard/Webber/Hartley 202 + 2 Laps 4. LMP1 #1 Audi Di Grassi/Gene/Kristensen 201 + 3 Laps 5. LMP1 #14 Porsche Dumas/Jani/Lieb 193 + 11 Laps 6. LMP1 #8 Toyota Davidson/Lapierre/Buemi 193 + 14m01.384s 7. LMP2 #35 Ligier Brundle/Mardenborough/Shulzhitskiy 189 + 15 Laps 8. LMP2 #36 Alpine Chatin/Panciatici/Webb 189 + 1m17.614s 9. LMP2 #46 Ligier Thiriet/Badey/Gommendy 189 + 2m24.956s 10. LMP2 #34 Oreca Frey/Mailleux/Lancaster 188 + 16 Laps 11. LMP1 #12 Rebellion Prost/Heidfeld/Beche 186 + 18 Laps 12. LMP2 #24 Oreca Rast/Charouz/Capillaire 186 + 2m46.414s 13. LMP2 #38 Zytek Dolan/Tincknell/Turvey 186 + 2m57.851s 14. LMP2 #43 Morgan Klien/Hirsch/Brandela 185 + 19 Laps 15. LMP2 #33 Ligier Cheng/Tung/Fong 182 + 22 Laps 16. GTEP #51 Ferrari Bruni/Vilander/Fisichella 180 + 24 Laps 17. LMP2 #42 Zytek Kimber-Smith/McMurry/Dyson 180 + 5.599s 18. GTEP #97 Aston Turner/Mucke/Senna 180 + 12.445s 19. GTEP #74 Chevrolet Gavin/Milner/Westbrook 180 + 1m00.165s 20. GTEP #92 Porsche Holzer/Makowiecki/Lietz 179 + 25 Laps 21. LMP2 #29 Morgan Schell/Leutwiller/Roussel 178 + 26 Laps 22. GTEP #73 Chevrolet Magnussen/Garcia/Taylor 178 + 6m44.159s 23. GTEA #95 Aston Poulsen/Heinemeier-Hansson/Thiim 178 + 7m31.105s 24. LMP2 #50 Morgan Ragues/Taylor/Ihara 177 + 27 Laps 25. GTEA #72 Ferrari Bertolini/Shaitar/Basov 177 + 2m21.655s 26. GTEA #61 Ferrari Perez-Companc/Cioci/Venturi 176 + 28 Laps 27. GTEA #88 Porsche Ried/Bachler/Al Qubaisi 176 + 51.978s 28. LMP2 #27 Oreca Zlobin/Salo/Ladygin 176 + 1m28.466s 29. GTEA #90 Ferrari Montecalvo/Roda/Ruberti 174 + 30 Laps 30. GTEA #57 Ferrari Krohn/Jonsson/Collins 174 + 2m16.333s 31. GTEA #77 Porsche Dempsey/Foster/Long 174 + 3m42.423s 32. GTEA #70 Ferrari Nakano/Ehret/Rich 173 + 31 Laps 33. GTEA #66 Ferrari Al Faisal/Neiman/Pumpelly 173 + 1m32.695s 34. GTEA #58 Ferrari Barthez/Pons/Ayari 172 + 32 Laps 35. GTEA #76 Porsche Narac/Armindo/Hallyday 171 + 33 Laps 36. GTEA #67 Porsche Maris/Merlin/Helary 171 + 2m34.880s 37. GTEA #98 Aston Dalla Lana/Lamy/Nygaard 169 + 35 Laps 38. GTEP #79 Porsche MacNeil/Curtis/Bleekemolen 167 + 37 Laps 39. GTEA #53 Ferrari Mowlem/Patterson/Hamilton 163 + 41 Laps 40. GTEA #62 Ferrari Mallegol/Bachelier/Blank 150 + 54 Laps 41. GTEP #91 Porsche Pilet/Bergmeister/Tandy 150 + 2m10.472s 42. GTEA #75 Porsche Perrodo/Collard/Palttala 139 + 65 Laps 43. GTEP #52 Ferrari Griffin/Parente/Leo 139 +1h20m29.413s 44. LMP2 #26 Morgan Rusinov/Pla/Canal 120 Retired 45. GTEA #60 Ferrari Mann/Case/Giammaria 115 Retired 46. LMP2 #47 Oreca Howson/Bradley/Imperatori 87 Retired 47. LMP1 #13 Rebellion Kraihamer/Belicchi/Leimer 73 Retired 48. LMP2 #48 Oreca Berthon/Gonzalez/Chandhok 73 Retired 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
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments