Le Mans 24 Hours Live Commentary and Updates
Minute-by-minute updates for the 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours.
The eagerly-anticipated centenary edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours is the first in which cars built to the new-for-2023 LMDh ruleset have been eligible to compete.
Toyota is seeking a sixth consecutive victory at the world's most famous endurance race, while Ferrari on its first factory effort in the top class in half a century and fellow returnee Porsche are gunning for their 10th and 20th victories respectively.
A field of 62 cars, including the Garage 56 NASCAR entry and 21 GTE Am machines on the category's Le Mans swansong, will take the start at the Circuit de la Sarthe at 4pm local time and race through the night.
Join us here for live updates throughout the race.
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Next up to try to pass Conway's Toyota is Felipe Nasr in the #75 Porsche, which heads its two sister machines and Bamber's Cadillac.
There's no shortage of pace in the GTE Am Porsches. Cairoli has gobbled up Serra and taken second, with Picariello's Iron Lynx car following the Project 1 911 through. Rigon will now be looking in his mirrors at a menacing set of gnashers.
Calado now dives ahead of Conway at the first Mulsanne chicane - the #7 Toyota is unable to match the pace of the lead car in this phase of the race.
Conway is clearly struggling as it's not just Calado in the Ferrari hounding him but a trio of Porsches have closed right in as well.
Interesting that Buemi is pulling away from Toyota team-mate Conway. It was the #7 car that had the advantage through the Test Day and then practice and qualifying. #8 struggled initially on both one-lap pace and in the long runs.
But just after making that move, Nielsen dives into the pits. Forget a 24-hour race, this had been feeling more like a sprint!
Nielsen dives ahead on the inside of Conway at Mulsanne Corner as the trio continue to be very close. So it's Toyota, Ferrari, Toyota, Ferrari at the front.
A message on the timing screens states that Kvyat's #63 Prema car has to fix the rear light at the next pitstop.
Things can't get much closer between second, third and fourth as the two Ferraris are hounding Conway!
Pit stop
Sebastien Bourdais has now become the first of the leading Hypercars to stop as he dives in at the end of lap nine in the #3 Cadillac.
Up to third in GTE Am goes Cairoli, demoting Rovera to fourth. 'Rexy' is on the move!
Bamber, meanwhile, has dropped another place as Christensen has now got ahead in the battle of the LMDhs.
Wow, this is getting really close between the two Ferraris! They were inches from the barriers there as they also close in on the second Toyota of Conway.
Pit stop
Kvyat now comes into the pits in the #63 Prema ORECA and tumbles to the back of the lead lap LMP2 pack.
Laurens Vanthoor is on a real charge here as he now gets the Porsche up to sixth after passing the lead Cadillac of Earl Bamber.
The two Ferraris are getting very close at the front now with Calado all over the back if Nielsen in the #50 that currently sits third but they remain in the same places - for now.
Two of the Porsche 963s battle at the first Mulsanne chicane and Vanthoor dives ahead of Christensen for seventh, which in turn allows the lead Peugeot of Paul di Resta to get a run. But the 9X8 can't quite relegate Christensen a further place as the Porsche pulls clear on the straight.
Silver-graded Simon Mann's hold on fourth in GTE Am was a brief one as he's been shuffled back to ninth in class. Cairoli is up to fourth ahead of Picariello, while Tincknell is now sixth in the #88 Proton car which has already topped off with fuel.
That really wasn't a great restart lap for Kvyat. He started it second in LMP2 and ended it in eighth, having also dropped behind Jota driver Piero Fittipaldi, Panis's Job van Uitert, Gabriel Aubry for Vector and the #23 United ORECA of Filipe Albuquerque.
We complete our first full lap of green-flag racing and the lead Toyota of Buemi now has a 1.3-second lead over the sister car but the two Ferraris are still right on its tail.
Penalty
We all knew it was coming, and now finally the race director has issued the instruction for the #13 TDS-run Tower ORECA to serve a three-minute stop-go penalty. Steven Thomas incurred the sanction when he ploughed into Casper Stevenson's crashed D'station Aston under double yellow flags in FP1, you may recall. Ricky Taylor is 14th in the pack, but won't be for much longer.
We've got some side-by-side action now and it's the second of the Toyotas with Conway in the #7 passing the lead Ferrari approaching Indianapolis. So it's now a Toyota 1-2 after Ferrari had locked out the top spots in qualifying.
We've not seen it on the TV, but Kvyat has lost two spots on the restart with Kubica and Reshad de Gerus bumping the Prema driver back to fourth in LMP2.
Not quite such a dramatic start this time at the front as it stays Toyota-Ferrari-Toyota-Ferrari.
Green flag
Here we go, Buemi leads the field across the line as we finally go green again!
The imminent resumption of hostilities means those LMP2 and GTE Am teams who plugged their bronze drivers in under that safety car won't gain perhaps as much benefit as hoped. But still, that some of their six-hour drive time droning around behind the safety car without losing any time to their rivals is no bad thing from a strategy point of view.
The new SC system was given another try-out twice during the Le Mans Test Day last Sunday. They lasted 25 and 32 minutes respectively. The convoluted wave-by/pass around only begins when the incident is cleared and takes about 17 minutes.
Lights are now out on the safety car so we might finally be about to get under way here.
Safety car
For those of you just joining, we're still under a safety car here at Le Mans following an opening lap crash for Aitken in the #311 Cadillac that has caused fairly extensive barrier damage and the V-Series.R is still in the pits for major repairs.
The GTE Am pitstops means Rigon now leads Serra, Rovera and Mann in an all-Ferrari top four. Picariello is the lead Porsche in fifth, ahead of Cairoli's Project 1 911 with that distinctive T-Rex livery.
We're now into the drop-back stage of the SC procedure in order for the cars to arrange themselves in class groupings behind the SC. No pass around this time because there are no cars ahead of their respective class leaders.
We're now into the grouping stage of the new safety-car procedure introduced at Le Mans. The cars run around behind three SCs while the incident is cleaned up (the barriers repaired in this case) before the concertina up behind a single SC.
The significance of those safety cars was that some leading LMP2 pro-am runners have inserted their bronzes. Rodrigo Sales is now aboard the Nielsen car started by Beche, while Francois Perrodo took over from Norman Nato at AF Corse. Jakub Smiechowski, the silver in InterEuropol's full-season roster, also took over from Fabio Scherer. Coigny is also freshly in for Nico Lapierre.
We have our first possible penalty, with the driver of the #37 Cool ORECA LMP2 Alexandre Coigny under investigation for overtaking under yellow flags.
Pit stop
And a truckload of GTE Am pitstops too. The leading Corvette is followed in by the GR Porsche, Walkenhorst Ferrari, Iron Dames Porsche, #74 Kessel Ferrari, D'station Aston, #72 TF Aston, #16 Proton Porsche, GMB Aston and the #25 TF Aston.
Sun
The sun is starting to emerge on some parts of the track and it's definitely looking less gloomy here.
The struggling Glickenhaus we mentioned before the start has indeed now made it out on track and is only the one lap behind the leaders after that suspected gearbox strife.
Pit stop
More pitstops now in the LMP2 pack. Beche was the leading LMP2 pro-am car, and he's followed in by Scherer, Gelael, Nato and Martin - whose DKR car has the rear deck off as its mechanics seek to diagnose those earlier issues that left the 2020 GTE Pro winner briefly stranded on the grid.
The second Ferrari of Calado was very slow exiting that same chicane and that explains how it dropped behind both of the Toyotas.
Replays have shown Aitken was trying to pass Bourdais in the sister Cadillac when he just lost control and his LMDh snapped into the barriers.
By: Autosport Staff
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