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H14: Rain helps Audi close on Peugeot

Rain has changed the entire complexion of the 76th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours as Peugeot have suddenly found themselves on the backfoot after 14 hours

Despite maintaining his lead of the race, Jacques Villeneuve could do little but cling on to his closed-roof 908 as Audi's Tom Kristensen relentlessly closed the gap to the No.7 Peugeot.

Having taken over from Dindo Capello, who had managed to cut Villeneuve's lead as well following the French team's lengthy service stop to cool the engine of car No.7, Kristensen took full advantage of the Audi's superior visibility to cut great chunks out the Canadian's lead.

By the end of the hour the battle for the lead had come down to a gap of less than 20 seconds, despite Kristensen making contact with the Saulnier Pescarolo.

Faster even than Kristensen was Mike Rockenfeller, who moved the No.3 Audi into third position. The German took advantage of Peugeot's decision to initially switch the No.9 car to intermediates instead of full wets. A strategy they rectified with a costly second stop only a couple of laps later.

By the end of the hour, he had put 45 seconds on Ricardo Zonta, who appeared to struggle in the conditions.

Frank Biela remained fifth, but seemed ill at ease in the rain, regularly running six seconds slower than those ahead of him. Through the chaos, Stephane Sarrazin moved back up to sixth in the trouble-hit No.8 Peugeot.

The rain predictably caused a number of incidents.

The first came 15 minutes into the hour when the No.5 Oreca of Soheil Ayari spun at the exit of the Ford chicane, the Frenchman lucky not to be collected by oncoming traffic. The marshals were also fortunate to get hit by cars going by.

They tested their luck further when Xavier Pompidou smacked the wall entering the pitlane ten minutes later. There were farcical scenes as track officials pushed the broken Lola down a soaking wet pit entry, as cars came storming in for wet tyres.

Finally, the Dome skidded across a gravel trap head on into a wall, believed to be at Indianapolis. It returned very slowly to the pits, looking decidedly secondhand.

Misfiring problems with the Essex Porsche meant that Jos Verstappen could take care to protect his lead in LMP2, having earned a comfortable six-lap lead over the Danish car.

Antonio Garcia stayed in the lead in GT1, still pursued intently by Johnny O'Connell's Corvette. But the 007 Aston Martin of Heinz-Harald Frentzen hit trouble when it pitted for a new battery and fell off the fight for class honours.

Jaime Melo continued to lead the GT2 class and now has over a lap's advantage to Tim Sugden in the Virgo Ferrari.

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