Skip to main content

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe
Live text
WEC 24 Hours of Le Mans

Le Mans 2013 Wednesday practice & qualifying

Live Text

Sort by
Oldest first
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the Le Mans 24 Hours right here on AUTOSPORT.com
The on-track action is about to get underway with the opening free practice session here in France and you can keep up on top of everything important going on right here with our rolling blog.

Here's how the timetable looks for the rest of the day.

Practice 1: 16:00-20:00 local time
Qualifying: 22:00-00:00 local time

Your AUTOSPORT team for the event is Gary Watkins, Jamie O'Leary, Sam Tremayne, Scott Mitchell and Geoff Creighton.
Green flag
The green lights are on at the end of the pitlane. Le Mans 2013 is officially underway!
Stopwatch
Audi hits the track first and it's Lotterer sending the #1 car straight to the head of the timesheets in 3m38.319s. That's just the 15 seconds off last year's pole time.
We have a stationary Audi at the Dunlop Esses. It's the #3 of Oliver Jarvis. He had a spin, replays showing the Brit taking to the grass as he crested the hill, and gyrating.
The track still appears a little greasy after earlier rain, but there's no question that slicks are the right tyres for the conditions. Track temperature is up to 29 degrees.
One of the Rebellion cars has a scary-looking spin in the middle of the Porsche Curves, but manages to continue without being ploughed into. It looked like the #12 of Nick Heidfeld.
Stopwatch
Lotterer has reduced the pace-setting time to 3m31.859s at the head of the field. He's 1.8s clear of Allan McNish in the sister Audi R18 e-tron quattro.
Crash
We have another spinner; this time the G-Drive/Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan of Shinji Nakano. He appeared to lose control at the first part of the Ford chicane and spin into the tyre wall, making light contact with the barrier. He has continued.

Nakano is competing in LMP2 and lies seventh in the class times currently. Setting the pace is the Level 5 HPD of Marino Franchitti in 3m51.301s.
Stopwatch
Both Lotterer and McNish improve their times to pull away at the head of the field. Lotterer, who has won this race for the past two years, is now setting the pace in 3m29.581s.
LMP2 runner Mark Patterson has a spin at the Ford chicane in the #48 Murphy Prototypes ORECA-Nissan. He's come to rest just short of the barriers and will continue. He lost it on entry to the first part of the chicane.
Half an hour in and here are the class leaders…

LMP1: #1 Audi (Lotterer) 3m29.581s
LMP2: #33 Level 5 HPD (Franchitti) 3m46.718s
GTE Pro: #91 Porsche (Bergmeister) 4m02.022s
GTE Am: #95 Aston Martin (Poulsen) 4m07.804s
McNish is the first man into the 3m28s to knock Lotterer off the top spot. Lotterer and Jarvis - now easily recovered from his spin - are next up.
Stopwatch
Alex Brundle, whose car was involved in that Heidfeld spin earlier while David Heinemeier Hansson was at the wheel, goes top of the LMP2 times in 3m45.313s. He's over a second clear of Franchitti.
Yellow flag
The Murphy LMP2 is off again. This time Patterson is facing the wrong way at the exit of Indianapolis and is being towed back towards the corner. Yellow flags are covering it.
Stopwatch
Ferrari shoots to the top of the order in GTE Pro category; Toni Vilander pumping in a 4m01.866s in his AF Corse 458 Italia to get him ahead of the best of Manthey Porsches.

Patrick Pilet is currently at the wheel of that Porsche, although it was Jorg Bergmeister that set the time.
Incidentally, we've worked out that the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours is also the 24th for our sportscar doyen Gary Watkins.

Mind, we only have his maths to go by on that (he's denying all parallels with Pele's 1000 goal record).

In driver terms, that'd be enough to put him sixth on the all-time list. Still some way to go to beat Henri Pescarolo though, who racked up 33 visits to La Sarthe in total. You can follow the man himself (Watkins, not Pescarolo, here).
Porsche driver Patrick Pilet has eclipsed Peter Dumbreck's test day best for Aston with his GTE Pro class-topping time of 3m58.797s.
Crash
The Ford chicane continues to catch out the unwary. This time it's Keiko Ihara (remember her from British F3 almost a decade ago?) spinning the #28 Gulf Racing Lola-Nissan.

That car currently lies 16th in the class.
Crash
Massive shunt at the second Mulsanne chicane. It's the Caterham Greaves car of Eric Lux.
Red flag
The red flags are out.
1990 Le Mans

1990 Le Mans


Ever found yourself wondering which races stood out most to Gary Watkins? Or, perhaps more relevantly, which races from the past two decades are most likely to go down as classics?

From Le Mans to Daytona, via the last Snetterton Willhire, Gary picks out his all-time top 10.
Eric Lux is standing next to his car surveying the damage. Good to see he got out of that one; it looked nasty.
With the session stopped, now seems like a good time to update you on the class leaders...

LMP1: #2 Audi (McNish) 3m28.538s
LMP2: #38 Jota Zytek-Nissan (Turvey) 3m44.220s
GTE Pro: #91 Porsche (Pilet) 3m58.797s
GTE Am: #81 8Star Ferrari (Aguas) 4m02.625s

P2 looks especially good for British interest in the race, as it's a 1-2-3 courtesy of Oliver Turvey, Mike Conway and Alex Brundle.



Here, incidentally, is the view that AUTOSPORT has from our perch above the pitlane. Yep. That's the AF Corse Ferrari of Matt Griffin/Jack Gerber/Marco Cioci getting a service.
Lux hit the barriers on the left-hand side on the entry to the second Mulsanne Chicane - looks like he lost it under braking. Repairs to the guardrail appear to be nearly finished.
Session to restart at 17.20 local time - that's just under three minutes.
Car 26 meanwhile - that's the G-Drive Racing ORECA Nissan - has been reported to the stewards for overtaking under yellows.
Rain
And, just as we prepare to go green, the rain is starting to come down - lightly for now, but enough to prompt the marshal umbrellas to go up.
Green flag
Green flags, and practice is back underway.

The Caterham-Greaves car is heading back to the pits on a flatbed. Some pretty heavy damage to the right-hand-side.

The mechanics will have a heck of a job to get that fixed for the remainder of the session.
Windscreen wipers are in full action as the rain starts to worsen. AUTOSPORT meanwhile has been discussing the Archimedes principle (in a very specific situation), while Gary Watkins has been informed this rain is here to last - so we might not see much in the way of improvements before qualifying tonight.
We have the #8 Toyota - currently fifth fastest - on track, but it doesn't have much in the way of company. Wet tyres being fitted to several cars along the pitlane.
Marc Gene heads out in the #3 Audi, but the other two R18s are still yet to go out following that red flag. As a measure of track conditions, Sebastien Buemi comes round in a 4m07.111s - more than 30 seconds down on his best.
And as if to underline the fact conditions are worsening, Neel Jani loses the rear of his Rebellion Racing Lola B12 heading through Turn 1.
Aha. We have sunshine back, and the rain has definitely let up. Seems Gary Watkins might have been fed dodgy information. The track is still very wet though.
Toyota readying slicks once more. Buemi is going to be guinea pig, it seems.
Still very treacherous out there, as Andre Lotterer and Marc Gene prove in their respective Audi R18s. Track conditions are in that horrible middle-ground, too dry for wets but too wet for slicks.

By: Jamie O'Leary, Sam Tremayne, Gary Watkins, Scott Mitchell

Published: