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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Another milestone in the race as he now have just one quarter of the race remaining. But plenty of opportunity for things to change in the remaining six hours.
There's been many a great sportscar that has never graced the Le Mans 24 Hours. From the Mercedes CLK-GTR, to the Eagle MKIII and Lancia D24, here's our countdown of the very best.
Off track
Pro-am LMP2 leader Kurtz has a gravelly moment at the first of the Porsche Curves, which sees him drop behind Memo Rojas in the battle for tenth in class.
Eastwood has now moved up into second ahead of Keating. He's 69 seconds behind Frey, but the Dames' bronze Sarah Bovy still has 90 minutes of driving time to use up - which could factor into the mix later on.
The gap up front has gone out to a minute. Giovinazzi didn't take tyres and Buemi did, which added 12s to his deficit.
Both Glickenhaus cars have emerged from the pits, a regular stop for the #708 and repairs for the #709.
Change for third in GTE Am as Eastwood demotes Hyett a place. The Aston factory driver now has Corvette's bronze Keating in his sights. TF's silver Michael Dinan and bronze Ahmad Al-Harthy each has a single stint left to do to reach their six hours of driving time.
There is clearly some pace in the #50 Ferrari despite its earlier woes as Fuoco now sets the fastest lap of the race with a 3m27.434s. That was almost three seconds quicker than leader Giovinazzi's most recent lap in the sister 499P.
That long stop as Huffaker took over from Kimura dropped him a lap down to seventh in GTE Am, 53s behind Ben Barker's GR Porsche up ahead.
Green flag
We're back to green-flag running, as the Glickenhaus makes its way back to the pits to assess the damage following that spin.
Keating has passed Hyett for second in GTE Am with a move to the inside of the second Mulsanne Chicane. Eastwood is closing on the pair of them in fourth.
Yellow flag
It's a case of deja vu at Glickenhaus as the sixth-placed #709 of Malleux now also spins at Indianapolis! But this time the car has spun into the barriers on the opposite side of the track having dropped a wheel in the gravel.
Keating was 5s faster than Hyett on each of the last two laps, bringing the gap down to just 1.2s between the two bronzes currently running second and third in GTE Am.
There's a flurry of pit activity among the Hypercars as Giovinazzi pits from the lead and the #8 Toyota now also enters for its stop.
Good and bad news for Peugeot. Jensen has just done the fastest lap of the #93, a 3m29.9s, while Muller in #94 has been taken back into the garage on its skates.
The leading LMP2 pro-am car remains the Algarve Pro entry with George Kurtz currently at the wheel in P10, albeit only 13s ahead of the fast-closing Memo Rojas who dealt the #7 Toyota a blow in its race-ending incident. You may recall that Kurtz lost victory on the line in the LMP2 class at Daytona to the Proton car of James Allen, who is sharing his car here.
Costa's latest pitstop on his 230th lap means van Uitert in third has closed to 1m48s behind the leader. Jani is still 16s in arrears with Paul Lafargue dropping 36s back from the Swiss in fifth. Charles Milesi is just on the lead lap in the 36 Signatech car.
Pit stop
The #3 Caddy is currently having a bit of a solitary race in terms of battling for position as Bourdais is a lap ahead and a lap behind the third and fifth-placed cars. It now comes into the pits with Bourdais handing over to Dixon.
It's a bit of a two-horse race in LMP2 at the moment with InterEuropol and WRT going blow-for-blow. Next up is the Panis car which is three minutes behind albeit still on the lead lap, Duqueiine's Jani 16s behind Job Van Uitert in fourth.
Quote
Jordan Taylor isn't racing this year at Le Mans, but is taking an advisory role within the Hendrick Garage 56 set-up. With the Camaro now ahead of the GTE Am pack, Taylor says: "When we saw that we were in the hunt to be leading the GT class is when we switched from a bit of ‘let’s just cruise here’ to ‘alright we can actually race a lot of these guys.’
"It feels like even though we’re not fighting them for a position it’s kind of nice to have that carrot to chase and a goal to beat them. This is when you see all the guys at Hendrick come to life."
"It feels like even though we’re not fighting them for a position it’s kind of nice to have that carrot to chase and a goal to beat them. This is when you see all the guys at Hendrick come to life."
It's as you were at the front after that FCY with the #51 Ferrari continuing to lead the #8 Toyota with the #2 Cadillac in third as the last of the cars not to be lapped. Next up is the sister #3 Caddy, which had an eventful start to the race after being hit by GTE Am cars and then a spin in the wet, while the #93 Peugeot is fifth and the first Glickenhaus, the #709 if Malleux, is sixth.
LMP2 leader Costa is making his Le Mans debut this year. He banked on joining a privateer team in P2 when it became clear he wasn't part of Lamborghini's plans for its LMDh roster next year, and the gamble so far is paying off for the 2009 Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup champion.
Neel Jani is back aboard the Duqueine ORECA after that spell aboard for Rene Binder. The 2016 Le Mans winner has completed the fewest laps of any driver in that car, with both co-drivers Pino and Binder having now managed six hours.
The Project 1 and Corvette cars that were running first and second have come back into the pits again. Both have bronzes installed with Hyett and Keating climbing in. Frey assumes the lead as a result.
The gap between the top two is now up to more than 40s. Buemi lost a dozen or so seconds in that FCY having already been done over by the Slow Zones when the leaders were making their stops. The tide is really turning in Ferrari's favour here. The big question is whether Toyota has the pace the catch up.
Green flag
We're back to green flag running with six hours and 40 minutes remaining.
Pit stop
Cairoli pits the GTE-Am leading Project 1 Porsche under the full course yellow and is followed in by Catsburg. Frey is third for Iron Dames, ahead of Castellacci and Eastwood.
There's a kind of clean-up operation going on under this FCY, presumably the reason it was called. There are marshals out there with leaf blowers getting ride of gravel and sundry debris from the circuit. Normally I would object to the use of such devices so early on a Sunday morning...
A spin for Jakobsen at Mulsanne Corner delays the 37 Cool ORECA which was already nine laps down on the LMP2 leaders. It is however second in the pro-am sub-division which is led by Algarve Pro.
Wow, there was a huge lock-up for Buemi in the second-placed Toyota into the first chicane just now! Plumes of smoke as he stamped on the anchors and will have flatspotted those tyres.
The gap up front has gone out to a minute. Giovinazzi didn't take tyres at that last round of stops and Buemi did. That added 12s to his deficit.
Fuoco has just set fastest race lap. He's got down to 3m28.104s in what is a pretty forlorn fightback after the #50 car's earlier delay. Giovinazzi has also been into the 3m28s in these favourable early-morning conditions. Buemi's last lap was a 3m31s by way of comparison.
Yellow flag
We're heading into full-course yellow now to retrieve some of the debris and dust from the track.
The timing screens state that the 57 Kessel Ferrari had a 3m07s stop to hand over to Huffaker.
Pit stop
Eastwood now comes in from fifth in GTE Am. The TF Aston is another close to concluding its bronze drive time with Ahmad al-Harthy only needing to do one more stint.
LMP2 leader Costa has had a little gravelly moment at Mulsanne Corner. He's clearly pushing to build a gap on Andrade, and now spews stones all over the road as he comes back on.
At this point in the race, we're down to just three cars on the lead lap. The two leaders are split by 30 seconds with the #2 Caddy - now with Westbrook at the wheel - a further two minutes back.
As predicted, Kimura comes in at the conclusion of his six-hours of drive time. It's been a super effort from the Japanese bronze to keep the Kessel Ferrari in the mix, with most of its GTE Am class rivals needing to use up over an hour.
It was a quick fix for the Glickenhaus as it is now wheeled out of the garage and could be soon returning to action.
The Toyota lost out during that slow zone and has now fallen 28s behind the Ferrari so lost about 10s during that spell.
By: Autosport Staff
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