Le Mans 24 Hours Live Commentary and Updates
Minute-by-minute updates for the 2024 Le Mans 24 Hours.
Live Text
Here's that #46 car in the pitlane! And it's that man, one Valentino Rossi, slotting into the cockpit!
Ferrari is telling us that the #50 car has gone back to mediums with the changeover to Molina. That suggests two things. Firstly that it struggled to make the softs last over a triple stint and secondly that it is not expecting any further rain. The sun is out so track temps are likely to be a little too high for the soft.
With other GT3 front-runners also pitting, the Manthey EMA Porsche hits the front. That car's on a slightly different strategy, but don't doubt its pace: Morris Schuring set the quickest lap of the race thus far when he was at the wheel. Bronze Shahin Yasser is currently the pilot.
Shwartzman duly pits just for fuel to keep his current rubber on the #83 car. As his nearest rivals pitted before him, he returns into the lead untroubled to carry on his strong charge.
Le Mans is bathed in proper, full factor sunshine for the first time in this race, which has prompted race direction to declare that the rain lights can be switched off the cars. The forecast is good for the next few hours.
Having moved back ahead of the #50 Ferrari due to its tyre change, the #5 Porsche is being harried and hassled again, and Molina makes quick work of getting by Campbell who is now at the wheel of the Porsche.
The car running third in LMP2 now has a drive-through to look forward to. That follows Nolan Siegel's role in the incident with Rene Binder's #33 DKR car a little while ago.
Wondering how quick The Doctor is around Le Mans in racing conditions? He's about a second off Maxime Martin's best of 3m59.663s in that BMW. Which should suffice to keep the #46 car in the lead for the time being. Yoluc Salih is currently a little slower in the chasing #66 Ferrari, with the two Manthey Porsches and the Iron Dames all lurking within 20 seconds of the lead.
The #8 Toyota pits from its elevated position, Hartley getting a fresh set of boots, and heads back out in sixth place. Further back the #6 Porsche takes on fresh mediums, so this slight increase in temperature is pushing teams towards the tougher compounds.
The #4 Porsche, #30 Duqueine and #77 Proton Ford have all picked up driver-through penalties for not following full course yellow procedures. The #4 is currently running in fourth so that'll be a dampened having made progress up the order.
We've got a wobbly rear wing (at least) on the #77 Proton Mustang. It's in the garage, where the visuals reveal an understandably high stress level amongst the mechanics looking to get the issue sorted soonest.
Binder has also been issued a drive through for not respecting blue flags. The #30 Duqeine entry has one too, for FCY procedural failings.
When the #77 gets going again, it'll have a penalty too, for FCY procedures.
Shwartzman is continuing to build his lead at the front, which has increased to over 40s, as Molina still cannot shake off Campbell in the #5 Porsche - under 3s splits the #50 from the #5.
It's still Cullen leading Miyata at the head of LMP2. So that's Vector Sport leading Cool Racing. The gap's been reasonably stable for a while now, and currently around the 30s mark. Siegel looks to have just served his drive-through.
Further back, the fight for fourth place is on as Hartley in the #8 Toyota is gradually closing in on the yet-to-take-a-penalty Tandy in the #4 Porsche.
Porsche has called Tandy out of the fight for fourth, stating they will make a driver change and the #8 Toyota is on fresher tyres. Porsche doth protest too much, methinks. But at this stage of the race it is still time to pick your battles.
Tandy pits and reports the rear wing is loose so the mechanics get to work to fix that before releasing Jaminet back into the action.
Bronze racer Giacomo Petrobelli has now jumped into the #66 JMW Ferrari. The Manthey EMA car has also just been in after a shortened stint, which may bring their strategy in line with most of the rest, including the Iron Dames Lambo, which just pitted right on schedule and slots into third place behind that Manthey EMA entry. For now, Rossi still leads but is due in after a couple more laps.
The leading #83 Ferrari ticks by lap 69. Nice.
Its lead remains stable over the #50 factory effort, which is starting to pull clear of the #5 Porsche. Behind them, the #8 Toyota is in front of the #51 Ferrari and then comes the #12 Porsche.
While Cullen will do another stint in (if all goes to plan) the lead of LMP2 for Vector Sport, he's now got Lorenzo Fluxa leading the chase. It's the bronze-rated Spaniard's first stint in the Cool Racing car, following a good effort by Ritomo Miyata in which the Japanese racer got within a couple of tenths of lead driver Malthe Jakobsen's best. What's can Fluxa produce after the work done by his two strong team-mates?
Lopez in the #7 Toyota sweeps by Ilott in the #12 Jota Porsche to take sixth place at Indianapolis. The night-time running appears set to reveal if the Japanese manufacturer can join the fight for the win against the Porsches and Ferraris, but right now they are between stuck between the leaders and the likes of the Lamborghinis, Cadillacs and Alpines.
Driver change for the leading #83 car, as Ye takes over from Shwartzman, and the expected tyre change is enacted. That puts the #8 Toyota into a provisional lead.
A yellow flag is briefly shown at the first corner as Kvyat spins the #63 Lamborghini coming out of the pits on cold tyres. He splatters his SC63 with gravel but is able to get going again, down in 17th.
The #46 BMW remains in the lead of GT3, its lead now 18.5s over the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche. Meanwhile the #95 United Autosports McLaren has just set its best time of the race in the hands of Nicolas Pino. Sarah Bovy is just behind Pino in the Iron Dames Lamborghini.
Now the sister Lambo has gone around on cold tyres. Cairoli taps the barrier in the #19 car but gets away with it and continues. There was a fear this situation would occur due to the ban on tyre blankets, as drivers were worried they'd feel like there were "driving on black ice".
Van der Zande in the #3 Cadillac has gone wide and banged the barrier, having just pitted, but he didn't change tyres. Is it another cold tyre-related mishap?
The #3 is back in the pits as the Cadillac crew investigate the damage before getting him back in the action.
Joel Sturm has moved up to second place in the #92 Manthey Porsche, clearing fellow Manthey racer Yasser Shahin. And Sturm is out-silvering Rossi up front by some margin too. Last time around he was over two seconds quicker, and the gap to the MotoGP legend ahead is now under 14s.
The two provisional leaders, the #8 Toyota and #51 Ferrari, pit to see the #83 AF Corse Ferrari return to its previous first place position. After those pitstops shake out Ye leads by 11s from Molina in the #50 Ferrari.
90 seconds cover the top three in LMP2, with #10 leading #37 and #22. But don't be fooled by this quiet phase - this class has a habit of hotting up towards the end of the race!
Drama for the #35 Alpine! Habsburg pulls over with smoke pouring out of the rear of the car. He jumps out and it looks like game over.
Sturm opens up the next round of GT3 stops. Meanwhile Conrad Laursen sets a personal best lap of the race in the #155 Ferrari. Let's see how it shakes out after these stops...
Habsburg has kept his helmet on as the car is recovered by the marshals and a tractor in the faint hope of resurrecting the A424, but it looks terminal.
That's not the first engine failure/problem that Alpine has had since the start of A424 programme. There was an issue during a 24-hour test over the winter and another during the Imola weekend.
Update on that #77 GT3 Mustang, which is still languishing in the pits: its problems extend to a broken steering rack. Likely picked up by getting too intimate with a large kerb.
The #35 Alpine is shuffled off behind the barriers and the slow zone is removed to get us back to full circuit green flag racing. The sister #36 Alpine is currently 15th and chasing the #3 Caddy.
The #66 Ferrari currently being driven by Giacomo Petrobelli is under investigation for possible slow zone infringements. That's currently your fifth-placed car in GT3.
The #7 Toyota, currently running in fifth with Lopez at the wheel, is under investigation for a slow zone infraction. That could undo their good work over the last two hours.
The leading #83 remains 15s ahead of the #50 who is still being tracked by the #5 Porsche with a 7s gap.
By: Autosport Staff
