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H17: #9 Peugeot leads, gap narrows

David Brabham continued the #9 Peugeot's inexorable march onwards as the Australian led through the 17th hour of Le Mans

Behind him however, his sister car's challenge for the lead begun to pick up pace as Franck Montagny reduced the gap between the two leading 908s to less than 1m50s.

The Parisian, well into his second marathon stint, set some blistering times through the first part of the hour, and was within 40s of the lead during the pitstops.

Tom Kristensen remained third in the only surviving factory Audi that is competitive. But the Dane has not been able to make inroads into the Peugeot advantage and ended the hour still more than two laps behind the leader.

Five laps further back, the #007 Aston Martin Lola held fourth position as it continued to run trouble-free, and fast.

The battle for fifth was quite lively as just nine seconds separated Soheil Ayari in the sole surviving ORECA and Christophe Tinseau's Pescarolo.

Neel Jani is up to seventh in the Speedy Lola ahead of the Kolles Audi driven by Andre Lotterer. Jos Verstappen brought the #008 Aston Martin in to the pits for a lengthy stop after the Dutchman reported a 'strange noise, after something broke'.

The car had dropped to 12th overall by the turn of the hour.

Casper Elgaard led LMP2 by two laps in the Essex RS Spyder. The similar Team Goh car is second with Sascha Maassen at the wheel. Xavier Pompidou remains third in class for Speedy Racing Lola despite a lengthy stop.

Johnny O'Connell led Marcel Fassler in the GT1 Corvette show, while Jaime Melo is still in the lead in GT2 for Risi.

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