Hour 23: encore une fois
The Bentleys have now completed more laps than the more powerful winning Audi in 2002. Apart from battery problems the team has run with unrelenting efficiency. It has been a dominant if somewhat monotonous performance by the VW group, with Bentley and Audi teams locking out the front between them
Jean Marc Gounon is driving the wheels off the Courage Judd to hang on to sixth, but Jan Lammers has other ideas, 1m43s behind and closing. The Lammers hurry-up has forced Gounon up the road and resulted in the gap to the fifth placed Panoz closing to 49, then 48 and now 47-seconds, so the race is still very much on in parts.
There isn't much that can be done to catch anyone elsewhere, however, and foremost in many minds will be a classified finish. Apart from the deserved laurels up front, medals the size of the Le Mans town hall clock should go to Kox, Enge and Davies for keeping all of GTS-dom behind them, seemingly forever, and to the Dutch Spyker operation, in last place on the timesheets, for overcoming all kinds of normally terminal woes to finish (including a brush with the pitlane marshals).
Unfortunately, the rules state that that a minimum of 70 percent of the leader's race distance must be completed to be classified, which means that the Spyker team and half a dozen others will not ultimately be credited.
One hour to go!
Kristensen/Capello/Smith Bentley 361 laps
Brabham/Herbert/Blundell Bentley 359 laps
Pirro/Lehto/Johansson Audi 356 laps
Ara/Magnussen/Werner Audi 354 laps
Beretta/Jeannette/Papis Panoz 344 laps
Cochet/Gounon/Gregoire Courage-Judd 343 laps
Lammers/Bosch/Wallace Dome-Judd 343 laps
Boullion/Lagorce/Sarrazin Courage-Peugeot 340 laps
Helary/Ayari/Minassian Courage-Peugeot 327 laps
Kox/Enge/Davies Ferrari 550 327 laps*
* GTS class
Kox/Enge/Davies Ferrari 550 327 laps
Gavin/Pilgrim/Collins Corvette 311 laps
Fellows/O Connell/Freon Corvette 311 laps
Andre/Maury-Laribiere/Pillon Reynard-Lehmann 307 laps
Nielsen/Shimoda/Elgaard DBA-Zytek 273 laps
Terada/Porta/Pickering WR 220 laps
Luhr/Maassen/Collard Porsche 305 laps
Hindery/Baron/Lieb Porsche 300 laps
Neugarten/Smith/Khan Porsche 290 laps
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