Le Mans 24 Hours Live Commentary and Updates
Minute-by-minute updates for the 2024 Le Mans 24 Hours.
Live Text
A change for the lead under the safety car! The #8 Toyota pits so that promotes the #6 Porsche to the head of the pack.
Hirakawa has replaced Hartley inside the #8 Toyota and it comes out in third, one safety car train behind the leading #6 Porsche and directly behind the #7 sister Toyota in second.
The #12 Jota Porsche and the #2 Cadillac have also just pitted, Norman Nato coming out in 11th for Jota and Alex Palou returning in ninth for Caddy. We're now into the third consecutive hour of this safety car period.
More leader changes - it is all happening now! Granted, it is the pitstop cycles playing out. The #6 Porsche and #7 Toyota nip in which releases the #8 Toyota back into top spot.
So the top three are in the same safety car train now, which could put the #7 Toyota in trouble given it was in the previous safety car train before stopping. Further back the #3 Cadillac and #51 Ferrari both pit so that pushes the #50 Ferrari back into fourth.
De Vries is at the wheel of the #7 Toyota which is now under investigation for coming out early into the wrong safety car pack. The #55 Vista AF Corse Ferrari was under the spotlight for the same offence earlier but has just been cleared. Was the pit exit light green when it should've been red for the #7?
Ah, the #7 Toyota pits but is only held for a short moment, so this could be the team mitigating the issue as it puts it one safety car back now.
No investigation necessary for the #7 Toyota according to race direction, so that's that. It has dropped de Vries behind the #50 Ferrari in the same safety car train. So, through no immediate fault of its own, it has actually lost a position because of it. Bizarre.
With an entire live text stint spent covering a safety car period, it is time for me to hand over to Ben Vinel and James Newbold. Hopefully they have better luck than me!
The #4 Porsche is back on track, driven by Felipe Nasr. It languishes in 17th, two laps down on the leader.
Thanks Haydn, well done keeping on top of those developments, which may prove crucial later on! Malykhin has just pitted from the LMGT3 lead and handed over to Bachler.
While the temperature went down to 9.6°C at 5am local time, it is now around 12°C. According to MeteoFrance, it should stop raining sometime between 9am and 10am. It is so wet that some spectators found shelter in the pedestrian tunnels under the track and are sleeping there.
By our estimation, the lengthy safety car interruptions means most of the LMGT3 entries have cleared, or almost cleared their bronze time. Hamaguchi, Heriau and Roda are yet to complete their six-hour minimum, but the likes of James (over nine hours), Shahin and Malykhin (both more than seven) are well clear.
Just walked from my car after a nice three-hour sleep back at base. It has, more or less stopped raining. It's kind of rain in the air at the moment. On the question of how long before we go green, I have no idea!
Well, it seems like the rain has stopped for now. Will the green flag be waved soon?
The Hypercar driver who has spent the longest time behind the wheel so far is Isotta Fraschini's Antonio Serravalle, who drove for six hours and 28 minutes, out of our 15 hours and 19 minutes of racing.
Although, obviously, "racing" might be a stretch when describing what is happening right now.
Shahin has had a few more laps in the lead and now cycles into the pits a few laps later than team-mate Malykhin. Ian James has also vacated the Heart of Racing Aston Martin.
Francois Perrodo meanwhile has pitted the LMP2-leading AF Corse ORECA, with Ben Barnicoat taking over.
If you've just joined us, then welcome. We're coming up to four hours behind the safety car due to rain and lack of visibility at the Circuit de la Sarthe which has meant the main point of intrigue has come through pit cycles over the past few hours. We'll let you know, as soon as we do, once we know more about going back to green.
More pitstops among the leading contenders in LMP2 and LMGT3 as the #10 Vector entry stops from third in LMP2, while the frontrunning #91 Manthey Porsche, #85 Iron Dames Lambo and #59 United Autosports McLaren all pit from the GT3 ranks.
Ryo Hirakawa remains in the outright lead behind the safety car aboard the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID. Laurens Vanthoor's #6 factory Penske Porsche Motorsport 963 is next in line, then there's a gap back to the #50 Ferrari 499P of Nicklas Nielsen and Nyck de Vries's #7 Toyota which are in the next safety car queue. Remember, there are three different safety cars around the long lap here.
Those LMGT3 stops featured a few driver changes as well, with Gatting replacing Bovy in the Iron Dames Lambo and Costa in for Cottingham in the #59 McLaren.
Your humble live text commenters have at least had a bit of kip to keep us sane. We feel a bit for the guys on the pitwall who are chained (almost) to their engineering stations and pit-to-car radios throughout the duration of the race.
We only have three official retirements in the Hypercar ranks so far. Both Alpines were halted by engine failures, while Dries Vanthoor's #15 BMW crashed out after contact with the #83 Ferrari which was given a 30-second penalty as a result. The #20 BMW that was crashed into the barriers at the Ford chicane by Robin Frijns is not yet an official retirement, and the WRT team has pledged it will return to the track later on as it continues to learn more about its M Hybrid V8 LMDh.
There have also been just the three confirmed retirements so far from the LMP2 ranks as well. The #9 Proton machine was the first when it suddenly ground to halt through the Porsche Curves in the sixth hour. Then a few hours later the #30 Duqueine entry ground to a smoky halt, while shortly before this lengthy safety car period began the #45 Algarve Pro ORECA shed a wheel.
On the point earlier about a red flag and wouldn't it have been better to park the cars for while when the rain was at its worst, well, the ACO is very proud of the fact that this race has never been red-flagged. A senior official once told me that it never will be.
There is one edition from the pre-war days where the race did come to a halt when the track - much narrower back then, of course - was somehow blocked. Couldn't be described as a stoppage in the modern sense, though.
The best of the Hypercar newcomers, it can be said, is Lamborghini with its pair of SC63 LMDh machines based on the Ligier chassis. Matteo Cairoli is 13th at present in the #19 car, two spots ahead of Daniil Kvyat in #63.
Meanwhile, we've lost just two from LMGT3 - Flohr in the #54 AF Corse Ferrari was the first to exit the race when he crashed at the Dunlop Chicane. But far more significant was the loss of the #46 WRT BMW that was in contention for the win when Al Harthy slid off track.
An important update from race control - this will be the last lap with three different safety cars, which suggests it will soon coalesce behind one and we may, perhaps, even get back to racing.
But don't get too carried away - it won't be the work of the moment to complete the merge process and the wave-by.
More pitstops are now being completed as this slow process of ending the safety car commences. Most notable among them are the second- and fourth-placed cars from LMP2 as the #34 Inter Europol car and the #37 Cool entry both pit.
One of the trio of safety cars has now peeled off and the merging process is properly beginning.
There were driver changes among those couple of LMP2 pitstops we just mentioned with Lomko now back in the #37 and the rapid Jakobsen in the #34.
If you're wondering how bad the rain is: 7.1mm fell between 3am and 7am. So, rather close to a centimetre of water, if that's easier to picture.
The next phase towards the resumption of racing has now begun with the pass around process taking place - this is where lapped cars between the safety car and the class leader can overtake the safety car and join the back of the queue.
A few nice shots of night racing at Circuit de la Sarthe – although we're pretty sure that words can describe the Le Mans 24 Hours at night, because that's exactly what we did over here.
The timing screens now say that the pass around has concluded, so we're surely not far away from going back to racing.
The order in LMP2 for the restart is as follows: Ben Barnicoat leads in the pro-am #183 AF Corse ORECA, followed by Bijoy Garg in United Autosports' #22 machine and the #10 Vector Sport entry of Stephane Richelmi. Fourth is Malthe Jakobsen's #37 Cool Racing example, then Vladislav Lomko (Inter Europol Competition) and sixth is Reshad de Gerus for IDEC Sport in sixth.
And in LMGT3 the order is as follows: Klaus Bachler (#92) and Richard Lietz (#91) are 1-2 in the Manthey Racing Porsches, with Hiroshi Hamaguchi up to third in the #95 United Autosports McLaren and Sean Gelael fourth in WRT's #31 BMW. Timur Boguslavskiy is fifth in the #78 Lexus, with Daniel Mancinelli's Heart of Racing Aston, Michelle Gatting's Iron Dames Lamborghini and the second United McLaren of Nicolas Costa next up.
By: Autosport Staff
