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WEC 24 Hours of Le Mans

Le Mans 24 Hours 2014 The 82nd Le Mans 24 Hours

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Really bad lap for Milner has dropped him right back from Senna – and now Vilander's all over the Corvette for second.

The Ferrari gets right, right up behind the C7.R under braking for the first and second Mulsanne chicanes...but the Corvette holds on.
Vilander not letting Milner get away though. He attacks again on the run down the Mulsanne.
Lotterer has crept back under the two minute mark in terms of the gap to the race-leading Toyota - he's now 1m58 behind Sarrazin in the #7 TS040.
P2 leader Brundle brings the Ligier into the pits for a scheduled stop.
The top three are still on the same lap in LMP1:

1 Sarrazin (Toyota)
2 Lotterer (Audi) +1m57s
3 Kristensen (Audi) +2m59s
Prost takes the #12 Rebellion back on track after spending 12 minutes in the pits. The car is down to 13th overall, so it has plenty of LMP2 cars to fight its way through if it can put a clean run together from here.
Milner's gapped Vilander now, so the GT race has cooled somewhat.
Sarrazin outpaces Lotterer over a lap for the first time in a while. It's only by a few tenths, but it stabilises the #7 Toyota's lead at 1m55s.
Vilander pits and trundles towards the Ferrari garage, where Gianmaria Bruni waits to take over.
That's Fisichella, not Bruni, who has taken over from Vilander.
The #73 Corvette changes hands, Taylor in for Garcia, and the young American's enthusiasm gets the better of him as he spins (and continues) at the Dunlop chicane.

The #74 Corvette is now in the pits, incidentally.
The #20 Porsche pits, and Bernhard stays at the wheel of the fourth-placed car.
Kristensen pits the #1 Audi, while Treluyer is ready to go in the garage so should be taking over the #2 car from Lotterer shortly.

However, Audi have made us (and their drivers!) wait a long time for changes in the cockpit at times in this race, so let's wait and see.
Drama for Audi. Kristensen is reported to be going slowly on the Mulsanne straight, between the two chicanes.
Yellow flag
We get an onboard shot of the the #1 Audi coasting to a halt. Kristensen clearly performs some sort of reset (as all the lights briefly go out) and he's able to get some throttle response back - but the car is still not up to full speed.
Kristensen is still limping back - he's now at the Porsche Curves. His speed doesn't appear very consistent, it's as if he's only getting power intermittently.
The #1 Audi makes it back to the pits, having lost nearly four minutes with all those problems.
The Audi is wheeled into the garage. Kristensen gets out, and di Grassi hops straight in as the mechanics get to work around them on the third-placed car. Audi Sport boss Wolfgang Ullrich stands over the car towards the rear, looking concerned (obviously).
While all that drama is taking place in the #1 Audi garage, the #2 car comes in and Lotterer gets a tank of fuel.
A Porsche occupies a podium position again - Bernhard takes the #20 919 back ahead of the #1 Audi while it is being worked on in the garage. Most of the focus seems to be towards the rear of the R18, after a brief look at the front to begin with.
The rear bodywork is off - and Audi mechanics start doing their best impressions of a human shield to prevent anyone getting a view, even though all we can see from the front is a bunch of engineers peering into a part of the car that is already out of our sight.
On track, the #2 Audi continues to make gains. Lotterer has the Toyota's lead down to 1m43s - with five seconds gained in the pits last time through.
During the last round of GTE stops, Senna did not take on a set of tyres but Fisichella, Westbrook and Lietz did.

Only two of those drivers are likely to make an impression on Senna's lead, which stands at 27s and 49s over his pusuers, but they are lapping quicker.
The #1 Audi rejoins with di Grassi at the wheel, after a stay of nearly six minutes in the pits. Coupled with the time Kristensen lost touring back, that's a loss of close to 10 minutes with this problem.
Brundle pits from the lead in LMP2, while in the big class Lieb brings the #14 Porsche in.
There's a problem around the cockpit of the #14 car - the mechanics appear to be replacing one of the doors. Lieb is sent back on his way.
Lotterer is still chipping away at Sarrazin's lead. It's down to 1m41s now for the Toyota.
Breaking news
Audi confirms that it carried out a fuel-injector change on the #1 car - and that the job took 5m20s. Speedy work.
More progress for Lotterer - he brings Sarrazin's lead down to 1m38s. The #2 Audi needs to keep this up - with the cushion the Toyota has, even a single off-the-boil lap from Lotterer can take the pressure off very quickly.
No sign of Lotterer letting up - he takes another two seconds out of Sarrazin so the lead is down to 1m36s.
Another two seconds for Lotterer - now the gap to the leader is 1m34s.
Buemi pits the #8 Toyota - running sixth - for fuel only.
A new personal best for Fisichella as he hunts down Senna. Fisichella, whose last lap was a 3m55.705s, is 20s behind the Aston now. Westbrook's 38s back and struggling for pace.
Sarrazin's lead is still coming down - it's 1m33s back to Lotterer's Audi now.
Hartley is getting ready in the Porsche garage, so he'll be taking over #20 from Bernhard soon.
A bit of respite for Sarrazin, he stems the tide and increases his lead over the chasing Audi ever-so-slightly.
Bernhard in the pits, with Hartley seemingly ready to take over. He is. He's in. He's out.
A slower 3m32s lap from Lotterer allows Sarrazin to increase his lead again - now it's up to 1m36s. For a while there it looked like the Toyota had no answer to the pace of the Audi, so it's somewhat fortunate for the #7 car that Lotterer has had a couple of tricky laps.
Di Grassi pits the #1 car and gets the new tyres he'd normally get at the start of his stint - obviously those plans were interfered with by the fact that Audi made its driver change earlier while the car was being worked on in the garage.

By: Geoff Creighton, Scott Mitchell, Glenn Freeman, Edd Straw, Gary Watkins, AUTOSPORT staff

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