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WEC 24 Hours of Le Mans

Le Mans 24 Hours 2015 The 83rd Le Mans 24 Hours

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Some troubled laps for Bell, who has dropped significantly behind Taylor - the gap's 11.8s now.
Another pitstop completed for Murphy, Berthon remains in the car, dropping from fourth to fifth behind Rusinov.
Jota continues to push on, eighth and three laps down. Turvey has set a new fastest lap for the car, 3m39.055s.

At the front of the field, Howson and Gommendy are continuing their marches, with KCMG holding a 2m25s advantage.
Fassler brings the #7 Audi in from second, on schedule after 13 laps. He's about to start his third stint.
Bell is now just 2.5s behind Taylor. His progress has been great: here are the average laptimes for the previous stint. It shows just how strong Bell's been, and how poor MacDowall's been:

Taylor (11 laps): 2m39.8s
Bell (12 laps): 2m38.0s
MacDowall (11 laps): 2m40.5s

Admittedly that was with Taylor on his second stint on those tyres - but if you look at the Corvette's first stint, it's still 0.8s a lap slower on average.
Since Dumas's off at the end of the Mulsanne straight delayed the #18 Porsche, we've got a four-car race on our hands really (although the #18 is still on the lead lap).

1 #17 Porsche (Webber)
2 #7 Audi (Fassler), +19s
3 #9 Audi (Rast), +34s
4 #19 Porsche (Hulkenberg), +1m07s
Webber just banged in the second-fastest lap of his stint, a tenth off his fastest. Seems to be getting stronger as his triple stint progresses.
Hulkenberg still flying in the third part of his triple stint - first flying lap is a 3m20.622s. Nobody else is going faster than 3m22.4s.
There are six seconds between Taylor in the first-placed Corvette and Bell who is chasing him in the #97 Aston.
Hulkenberg's stint was at an average pace of 3m22.170s. Good pace for the middle part of a triple.
A pitstop down at G-Drive (OAK), Bird has stepped out of the Ligier and Rusinov is back in,
Webber leads Fassler by 16s out front. That gap has come in a little bit, but nowhere near to the extent it did in the previous stint, when Fassler was on a mission and had the lead down to 10s before he pitted.
A subplot to Greaves Motorsport's retirement is that Gaetan Paletou won't get behind the wheel to make his Le Mans race debut. Last year's Nissan GT Academy winner started his maiden race 10 months ago, but won't be adding to his tally today.

The resident dog in the AUTOSPORT house is actually called Gaetan. It's only a young puppy, too, less than a year old, so we can only assume its owners are already big fans of the young French driver.
Hulkenberg's performance in this stint has taken the #19 car from the fringes of the lead fight to very much make it a factor.

The fact that all of the lead cars are relatively out of sync on pitstops means that it's hard to tell how the race is shaking out at the moment, but it seems that at least the #17 + #19 Porsches, plus #7 + #9 Audis, are in the mix right now.

And here comes Hulkenberg for another stop, on schedule.
And the leading Corvette pits. As mentioned previously, Bell's been pushing very hard and has put together a handy stint. There shouldn't be much between the #74 Corvette and #97 Aston at all.
Hulkenberg, currently on his second time in the car and in the middle-stint of a triple, just banged in a 3m19.862s. Doing an excellent job.
At the front of LMP2, KCMG still leads TDS by 2m29s, with Howson and Gommendy behind the wheel. Bird is third, while Chatin is back in the Signatech Alpine and fourth, ahead of Berthon.
The two Aston Martin frontrunners have stopped. Actually, they are on their way again - #97 still ahead of #99.
Average pace for the cars on the lead lap during their last completed stints:

1 Hulkenberg, 3m21.164s
2 Fassler, 3m21.601s
3 Webber, 3m22.459s
4 Dumas, 3m22.082s
5 Albuquerque, 3m32.537s
Rast brings the #9 Audi in, meaning Webber leads from Fassler again out front (by 18s - remember, it was 10s before both cars pitted last time).

Hulkenberg moves the #19 Porsche into third, with Rast rejoining in fourth.
Yellow flag
The Krohn Ligier has come to a halt on Mulsanne. It's now going again, and the yellow flag will be withdrawn we assume.
Lead gaps in LMP1:

1 #9 Audi (Rast)
2 #17 Porsche (Webber), +17.6s
3 #7 Audi (Fassler), +33.1s
4 #19 Porsche (Hulkenberg), +46.2s
Jarvis, in the #8 Audi that's a lap down in sixth, is showing decent pace. He's averaging 3m21.483s in this stint.
Dumas's pace during that recent run, the final part of a triple stint, was 3m22.341s. Obviously, he undid a lot of that work with his off at Mulsanne Corner.
Dumas - who has fallen behind Hulkenberg and drops to fifth - pits, roughly on schedule. Jani hops in, and the team changes tyres.

Off comes the front bodywork, and in a matter of seconds a new one is fitted and the car is sent on its way. If it only suffered minor front-end damage, that's a lucky escape.
The #18 Porsche is back on track, surely returning to the pits. That was a scary moment.
Yellow flag
Dumas has gone straight on in dramatic fashion at Mulsanne corner. He had a big lock up but still made it to the barrier - that looked like a failure of some sort.
A pair of pitstops for the LMP2 front-runners. KMCMG, which leads by about two minutes, has been in for fuel, while TDS has stopped and replaced Thiriet with Gommendy.
The #8 Audi is currently a lap down in sixth place, a consequence of Duval's shunt when caught out by cars slowing for a slow zone early in the race.
There we go, almost as we write that Bell passes MacDowall and takes second. He's comfortably been the fastest GTE this stint.
Bell's had a great stint in the #97 Aston and that, combined with a poor run from MacDowall, means the two Vantages are probably about to swap places.

When released, Bell should be less than 10 seconds behind the leading Corvette.
Of the five on the lead lap, the next one due into the pits is the #18 Porsche.
Here's how it stands at the front:

1 #9 Audi (Rast)
2 #17 Porsche (Webber), +12.193s
3 #7 Audi (Fassler), +31.380s
4 #18 Porsche (Dumas), +43.013s
5 #19 Porsche (Hulkenberg), +43.850s
The #91 Porsche pits, Bergmeister stays in and then continues on his way. That car's still fourth.

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

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