2022 Le Mans 24 Hours Live Commentary and Updates
Live updates for the 2022 Le Mans 24 Hours at the Circuit de la Sarthe
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That's my opening stint done, I'll hand you over now to the capabale hands of Richard Asher for the next three hours. Enjoy Richard!
Thank you Mr Newbold! And there's no time for niceties beyond that, as the recovering #709 Glickenhaus is going wheel to wheel with the #36 Alpine for fourth place. Richard Westbrook has been on the charge since his car had a brief visit to the garage earlier, and the Alpine's latest stop brought the Briton in sight of Matthieu Vaxiviere. And, as I type, past him!
We've got a spinner, and it's the #46 Team Project 1 GTE Am Porsche. Nicolas Leutwiler lost it on the way into Indianapolis, is stuck in the gravel and he'll need a special vehicle to help him out. There's currently a slow zone in the area.
Now into his third stint, Vaxiviere is pushing hard. He evidently didn't take kindly to Westbrook shunting him down back into last place in the Hypercar category. But despite his efforts, he's lost over five seconds to his rival now.
Leutwiler has been dragged out of the gravel pit and is hobbling slowly back to the pits. Weathertech Racing still leads the class comfortably with its #79 Porsche.
The battle in LM P2 has moved into the pit lane for a moment, with the sixth round of stops now playing out. Louis Deletraz has taken over the #9 Prema Orlen Team car, while Yifei Yi hands over to Niklas Kruetten following an impreesive stint in the #37 Cool Racing car. The latter is now down to 7th in class following the stops. Julien Canal has taken over the Panis Racing car as well. He's 5th for the moment, while William Stevens still maintains his comfortable lead in the #5 Jota machine.
There's always a battle to be had in LM P2! Delatraz is chasing Canal hard for 5th in class. And the Jota of Edward Jones is just ahead of these too. This thing might escalate soon...
Meanwhile we have a slow zone again, also in the Indianapolis area, thanks to a mistake by Ryan Cullen in the Vector Sport car. He'd just taken over from the distinguished Seb Bourdais...
That was a 10-lap stint from the #708 Glickenhaus. Probably taking advantage of pitting when that Slow Zone was in force.
Update from GTE Pro, I hear you ask? They're all in perfect formation once again. It's 2x Corvette, 2x Porsche and then 2x Ferrari. Oh, wait! Michael Christensen just passed Tommy Milner for second. And his team-mate Richard Lietz has done the same. Symmetry? What symmetry?
Now there's a change between the GTE Pro Porsches, Lietz slipping past Christensen amid some jostling P2 traffic. Milner can't seem to keep the Porsches in sight at the moment.
The Mighty #38 Jota car was a big winner there in that protracted Slow Zone period. The lead for Will Stevens has gone out from 36s to 76s. That's almost certainly because he had to go through it - and slow down to 80km/h - one fewer time than the chasing pack.
We have had an off at the very front of the race! Jose Maria Lopez had an excursion, and that has allowed the #8 Toyota back into the lead! But it is very, very close at this moment...Brendon Hartley is holding onto the slenderest of leads going through the Porsche Curves.
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The leading Corvette is into the pits, where Nicky Catsburg relieves Jordan Taylor. The fourth round of GTE Pro stops is underway. That will split up the battling Porsches, as the #92 car of Christensen stays out and assumes the lead for now.
The #36 Alpine Hypercar is in trouble! Vaxiviere couldn't get its wheels turning as he tried to get away from its latest pitstop, which also appears to be an unscheduled one. They've pulled the French vehicle into the garage....
Worth noting: the #31 WRT car has now his the top ten in LM P2. That's the car that had a one-minute penalty earlier in the race for Rene Rast's role in the first-corner fracas. Sean Gelael is currently at the wheel. It's a quick car and the Spa winners should progress further if they can avoid trouble...
It's still very close at the top of the leaderboard, with just about a second splitting the lead Toyotas. Hartley remains ahead of Lopez. The Alpine is still in the garage, and now tumbling down the charts.
Corvette, with Nicky Catsburg at the wheel, leads in GTE Pro once more following all the pitstops. In second place, Richard Lietz is beginning to leave Porsche colleague Laurens Vanthoor behind. Alexander Sims has taken over the #64 'Vette from Milner -- but currently a touch slower than the 911 ahead of him.
We've got a multi-car battle on track for second place in LMP2. The #28 Jota of Ed Jones leads the train, ahead of Dries Vanthoor (Team WRT), Charles Milesi (Richard Mille Racing) and Felipe Nasr (Penske). The Canal/Kruetten/Deletraz fight is five seconds behind that lot. If it's like this in 20 hours....it'll be some finish!
The P2 battle is an intriguing one, if you look past the monster lead of the #38 Jota car. It's worth noting that none of the top five cars in class has had its mandatory silver driver behind the wheel. Silver-rated Canal is running sixth in the Panis car at the moment.
Vaxiviere has just revealed that it's a clutch problem keeping the Alpine in the pits for a race-ruining length of time. Or, to be precise, the electrics behind the clutch. But he says they'll be ready to roll again soon.
The Nasr Penske has found a way around the Vanthoor WRT entry. Second place is nice...but the lead Jota car is over two minutes up the road. Meanwhile the Inter Europol Competition car has set its own quickest lap of the race thanks to Esteban Gutierrez. 3m34.729 is a good time compared to the rest at this moment.
The track temperature has just fallen below 40 degrees for the first time today. Which is a sign that the golden hour is drawing near. Photographers will be cleaning their lenses -- or whatever it is photographers do -- and heading out to their sunset spots of choice...
As promised by Matthieu Vaxiviere, the Alpine is now on track once again. The driver is now Andre Negrao, jumping in for his first stint of the race. The home entry now has a mountain to climb, as it has fallen three laps behind the fourth-placed Glickenhaus now being driven by Ryan Briscoe.
Charles Milesi has picked up a 1-minute penalty for forcing another car off the track and crossing the white line at pit entry. Nobody in LM P2 can afford this kind of thing! And it's bad news for Sebastien Ogier.
Nyck de Vries is putting in some good work in the TDS ORECA - he'd posted a 3m32s lap shortly before pitting just now. The Dutchman was here anyway in his capacity as Toyota's reserve driver and was drafted into the TDS line-up when Philippe Cimadomo was excluded from the meeting. He doesn't have to familiarise himself with the ORECA 07, of course. He knows all about the car - and team - from his time with Racing Team Nederland in the WEC.
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For our overview of the first four hours of this 90th edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours, give this a read: https://www.autosport.com/le-mans/news/le-mans-24-hours-toyota-nose-to-tail-as-alpine-glickenhaus-delayed/10320603/
The #31 WRT car is up to seventh place! Meanwhile Roberto Gonzalez has taken over the category-leading Jota entry.
The troubled Alpine entry is back in its pit box. It's starting to look like this could be a recurring theme for the home favourites and current Hypercar wooden-spoonists.
The sun is certainly sinking low at La Sarthe now. Headlights are having more effect than merely warning the driver in front to get out of the way. But apart from a scrap over ninth place in LM P2, things are relatively settled at the moment. But saying that at Le Mans is usually a sure-fire way to bring on a massive burst of action...
Sure enough, there's a car in the gravel pit! That's the entry to the Porsche Curves...but though the speed going in is high, he's managed to avoid slamming into the barriers. It looks like it's the only non-ORECA in the LM P2 category, namely the #27 CD Sport Ligier. But Monsieur Christophe Cresp has got it going and made it back to the pits, so we've got a clear track.
We're five hours into the Le Mans 24 Hours, and so far things are running sweet for Toyota, with Ryo Hirakawa (#8) leading Kamui Kobayashi (#7) as the Japanese marque chases a fifth straight victory with two Japanese drivers currently at the wheel. They're split by three seconds. The Glickenhaus cars have shown that they can pump in fast laps, but not consistently enough to get closer than 1m16s of second place at this stage, with Luis Felipe Derani leading the chase in the #708 car. That is close enough, however, to take advantage of event a minor problem for the Toyotas as we count down to the hours of darkness.
The #64 Corvette has begun working its way back up towards the front of GTE PRO. In fact, Alex Sims has just taken second from Laurens Vanthoor in the #64 Porsche. That re-establishes the 1-2 we had for the American cars earlier on. Nicky Catsburg continues to lead in the #63 car, with an advantage of 42 seconds over his team-mate.
The front-running LM P2 Penske has been into the pits and received some replacement bodywork on the front end. That stop was a little longer than standard, but it came on schedule and the #5 car has only dropped to eighth place following this ninth round of stops. That leaves Louis Deletraz (Prema Orlen Team) in charge of chasing the lead Jota car for the time being. Its advantage has been cut from over two minutes to 1m43s. The gaps behind meanwhile, are mostly single-figure ones....
Another incident in the Porsche Curves. It's the Alpine, which is running again...but running off the road. It was a brief moment, however, and the car is now up to speed again.
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The Weathertech Racing Porsche is still merrily leading away in GTE Am, with Cooper MacNeil now threading the car around the Circuit de la Sarthe in the tricky sunset hour. You'll have to wait a good 90 seconds for his closest challenger Nicki Thiim to come along in his Northwest AMR Aston Martin. The TF Sport Aston lies third, a further half a minute behind.
Kamui Kobayashi has slipped into the lead in the #7 Toyota, relegating his countryman and team-mate Ryo Hirakawa into second once more. The gap is five seconds....and the odds on it being the last swap of positions between these two Hypercars are long!
By: autosport.com
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