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24 Hours of Le Mans
Le Mans 2017: Thursday
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LMP2
In that small amount of running, pole position has changed hands with Thomas Laurent taking top spot in the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA. The #28 TDS ORECA is still second courtesy of Vaxiviere's time of yesterday. The only other thing that has happened near the front is Ragues improving the #35 Signatech ORECA's time to a 3m30.582s to move it from seventh to sixth. We also saw the #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA appear after its engine change, but it had to tour in slowly.
GTE AM
The GTE Am leader is unchanged from last night – Lamy's 3m55.134s in the #98 Aston still stands, ahead of the #77 Proton Porsche's 3m55.692s and the #90 TF Sport Aston's 3m55.953s, both also legacies of yesterday evening's session.
A large truck has, as promised, arrived on the accident scene. It's not clear what its purpose is. But they've got pretty effective here at Le Mans at repairing barriers. It's just that it's not a very quick job given the need to account for the inevitable next impact.
LMP2
A better look at the scene of the accident, including the barrier damage that needs repairing:
Sun
Weather update: it's still quite sunny. But, due to the rotation of the earth, that will gradually change.
GTE PRO
Let's take a quick recap of the GTE Pro top six. The top two are unchanged since no one has beaten their times from last night: the #95 AMR Vantage (3m52.117s) and the #71 Ferrari (3m52.235). Richard Westbrook has put the #69 Ford third with a 3m52.496s effort, enough to displace the #71 Ferrari to fourth in spite of Pier Guidi improving that car's time (3m52.962). The #97 Aston is fifth, yet to improve on the 3m53.296s from last night. The #68 Ford is now sixth after Tony Kanaan - who completed a 12-hour Le Mans simulator programme on Monday - set a 3m53.512s just before the red flag.
LMP1
During this red flag, it is worth having a closer look at the new fastest time. Conway's 3m18.651s may be well inside last year's pole time of 3m19.733s but it's still a way off the qualifying record of a 3m16.887s. Despite improvements for Conway and Tandy, the order has so far remained the same as yesterday with the #7 Toyota leading the sister #8 car, then the #2 Porsche followed by the #9 Toyota and the #1 Porsche.
Radio Comms
The Race Director warns that he will be "“sending heavy equipment onto the track - I need to repair the guardrails." So this could take a while...
Crash
It turns out the #86 Gulf Porsche has indeed also stopped. That's as a precaution due to overheating.
LMP2
The crashed car is on the run out of the first chicane on Mulsanne.
LMP1
The updated LMP1 order following Conway's new session-topping time:
Radio Comms
Race Director update: “The driver got out of the car on his own, as a matter of precaution he will be taken to the medical centre.” We think that that driver is Maris although we've not had a clear view.
LMP2
Here's the only view we've had of the accident so far:
Stopwatch
Just before that red flag we had a new provisional pole time! Conway improved the #7's best lap to a 3m18.651s to go a tenth faster than Kobayashi yesterday. Tandy also improved the #1 Porsche's time to 3m21.083s but it remains fifth.
GTE AM
Barker's #86 Gulf Porsche was also reported to be travelling slowly just before the red flag.
Reckon we shouldn't dis Kraihamer's lap. That's faster than he ever went in a Rebellion R-One around Le Mans. Would ByKolles be challenging Rebellion had the Anglo-Swiss team not stepped down to P2 for this year?
Crash
We can see from an onboard from the #7 Toyota that there's a prototype in the wall on the Mulsanne Straight. It might be the #33 Eurasia Ligier of Maris. Looks like it's hit the barrier on the right of the track.
Crash
We can't see why, but the #86 Gulf Porsche is listed as having stopped on the timing screens.
Red flag
RED FLAG
GTE PRO
Many of the GTE Pro drivers we talked to today suggested that 3m52s would be their idea of a good race pace, so we can take the present order – still led by the #95 Aston Martin with the 3m52.117s set last night – that many of the teams are focusing on finessing race setups at the moment. That said, Westbrook has just set the #69 Ford's fastest lap so far, 3m52.496s, while Pier Guidi has taken the #51 Ferrari round in 3m52.952s, a fraction quicker than Calado managed in that car yesterday evening.
LMP2
And Calko improves again in the #49 Bratislava Ligier. But it's a Ligier, so even a 3m33.921s is still only good enough to put him 14th because there are so many ORECAs.
LMP2
Calko improves to a 3m35.312s in the #49 Bratislava Ligier. That car is 19th.
LMP1
After briefly being knocked out of sixth by the leading #38 ORECA LMP2 car, Kraihamer has now restored the ByKolles to the position setting a 3m26.026s. In case you're interested, that is 7.2s off Kobayashi's best.
LMP1
The view from Buemi's car as he limped back to the pits with that problem:
LMP2
There's also an improvement from the #35 Signatech ORECA, with Ragues doing a 3m30.582s.
LMP2
Allen puts the #40 Graff ORECA up to fourth with a lap of 3m30.400s.
Information
Buemi has now finally made his way back to the pits, but it took him over six minutes to complete the final sector.
That's the kind of time from Laurent that ORECA's simulations have been predicting for the latest breed of P2 car. Given that the track is not at its prime and the temperatures still high, I reckon we can expect even more from the lead members of the ORECA flotilla come the mad half hour at the start of Q3.
LMP2
McMurry improves in the #45 Algarve Pro Ligier. He's done a 3m34.590s to go 17th.
LMP2
The #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA is slowly touring back to the pits. That's the one that had the engine change and that has Cheng at the wheel.
Stopwatch
Laurent takes LMP2 top spot in the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA with a 3m26.776s.
GTE PRO
Frank-Steffen Walliser, Porsche's VP of Motorsport, said earlier: “In qualifying we look for peak performance but in the hot conditions we concentrate on the setup for the race to learn as much as we can. For sure if you have a shot with fresh tyres you try, but we don’t overstretch it.” When we put it to him that not all the teams seemed to be making a concerted effort to go for pole, he said, "Well, Aston Martin would like it with the lap time they did yesterday evening, they care for sure." We'll be looking at the importance of GTE quali on Autosport Plus tomorrow.
Green flag
Whatever the problem was with the Toyota, Buemi is now slowly back on the move.
Crash
And we have major drama already! The #8 Toyota of Buemi has ground to a halt.
Yellow flag
We have a yellow flag on the final part of the Mulsanne Straight.
LMP1
This is the situation in LMP1 at the start of this session:
LMP2
The #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA is out in the hands of Cheng. That car barely ran in qualifying yesterday and has had an engine change.
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LMP1
So who will be getting the first chance to improve their car's time? In the #7 Toyota will be Conway, in #8 will be Buemi and #9 Kunimoto. Over in the Porsche corner will be Tandy (#1) and Bamber (#2). And not forgetting the ByKolles, that will be started by Kraihamer.
LMP2
In the leading LMP2 cars we have:#28 TDS ORECA - Perrodo#31 Rebellion ORECA - Prost#25 Manor ORECA - Trummer#24 Manor ORECA - Graves#38 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA - Laurent
By: Matt Beer
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