Le Mans 24 Hours Live Commentary and Updates

The Bachler Porsche is right up there again despite penalties - he's faster than all of the others at the front of the GT3 pack. But wait, Schuring has just responded - these two Porsches are trading times in the 3m58s while 'personal' bests are popping in further down the field as well. Seems like it's a friendly track at the moment....

The third-placed #7 Toyota is some way behind the front two. 

The gap between Lotterer and Kobayashi is 55 seconds, but the two Toyotas are comfortably faster than any other Hypercar right now.

They are in the 3m31s, the rest are in the 33s. Lotterer is in the 34s!

Apart from Takeshi Kimura in the #87 Akkodis Lexus, there are no bronze drivers currently in the cockpits of the front-running GT3 cars. Even so, we are seeing a huge spread of lap times at the moment. Schuring just went four seconds faster than Bachler at the front of the field, for example!

Lotterer is finding his feet now. His last lap was two-tenths faster than both Toyotas, which has helped to stop the bleeding of the gap.

Pino's just had a little spin in his McLaren. 

The #88 Proton Mustang has a five second stop/go penalty for an unspecified 'second offence' technical infringement.

Fuoco is into the 3m30s now for Ferrari. The #50 is flying along nicely and, in fairness to Bamber behind, the #2 Cadillac is following along.

Good fight between Bachler and vd Linde at the front of GT3. They're still under ten seconds apart, though leader Bachler is circulating quicker. They'll both have to stop soon, and it will be interesting to see where they emerge compared to the consistently quick Schuring Manthey Porsche.

The closest Hypercar battle to note is between the #51 Ferrari and the #38 Jota Porsche for seventh, which is hovering at around a second.

Calado is in the #51 and chat is going on about his next pitstop. We are a just a few laps away from the next window.

In LMP2, Varrone has just pitted from the lead and Oliver Jarvis has just nailed his car's quickest lap. He's running fourth at the moment, the David Heinemeier Hansson now in the lead for Vector. Pilet is another consistently quick racer tonight, and currently second for Vector Sport. Staggered pitstops will likely change some of that before I can hit 'send'!

Calado is being told he needs to stay on for another two stints after this one. That will be a mammoth quad stint, but he hasn't even reached half of his minimum drive time, so Ferrari has been forced into the extended run for the Briton.

BMW M Motorsport's Vincent Vosse: "Le Mans has been very tough to us so far. Having car #20 in the garage after contact with the wall, having car #15 out of the race, which was then followed some hours later by car #46 also marking up a DNF, is a hard one to swallow. Luckily all drivers are okay! But how can we not be disappointed? As we all know, Le Mans is the big one, but we will fight back!Car #31 is still running and we are hoping to fight for a podium. A well-deserved one for the crew that has been working tirelessly for the past two weeks."

Some driver changes to report in GT3, where Saucy temporarily leads. Robin Arnold has taken over from van der Linde and Aliaksandr Malykhin has relieved Bachler. 

The #4 PPM of Tandy has found the gravel down the hill from the Dunlop bridge, but he has avoided the barriers and escapes unscathed.

In LMP2 the top few cars on the leaderboard all stopped within the last few minutes. The order is Varrone, Heinemeier Hansson, Jarvis and Cullen. The latter has just taken over from Pilet, who already has a disproportionate share of drive time to his name - almost five and a half hours!

I say temporarily because the #38 pits the next time around and drops back to ninth.

In the pitstops, the #2 has jumped back ahead of the #50 and into fourth by some seven seconds.

That's because Fuoco has vacated the Ferrari seat and has switched with Molina.

Saucy has dropped to second following his stop. So Schuring leads GT3 by 53s, with Malykhin in third and Arnold Robin fourth. 

The Nielsen Racing LMP2 car is being craned away at the Esses.

The #77 Mustang, meanwhile, is back in the pits but being wheeled into the garage.

The #8 Toyota crew has echoed the rain call, though it sounds like it will be a light smattering. If that's so, slicks will stay on but it will be treacherous in these nighttime conditions.

Molina has hit the ground running and has already found the confidence to drop into the 3m30s. That has put him within striking distance of the #2.

Cullen and Miyata currently involved in an on-track fight for third in LMP2. It's taken several hours, but the TV production folk have finally woken up to the existence of categories that aren't Hypercar. 

Molina is now just a second off Bamber, with that battle about 70 seconds off the final podium place.

Slow zones are out, which will help those stopping.

Bamber is out of the #2, with Palou jumping on board. Wets are chosen.

Meanwhile, with rain about, the cars placed second, third and fourth in LMP2 have pitted. Jarvis hands over to Siegel and Miyata to Fluxa, but Cullen remains on board. Ah, and Varrone apparently also stopped in the lead AF Corse car, so too the Europol entry. Pretty much all the front-runners, in other words. What tyres? You'll know as soon as we do...

Just the third FCY of the race so far, though there was a SC period of over an hour earlier on.