Le Mans 24 Hours Live Commentary and Updates
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Fresh out of the pits, Nielsen easily passes Stevens in the battle for a net second place after the Caddy was baulked inadvertently by a Lexus in the first Mulsanne Chicane.
Andlauer in the following lap, but Estre keeps going for another tour and now leads. Don't know if anybody was taking lots for how long it would take him to get to the lead, but I doubt 1hr27m would have been on many people's cards. Nasr also stays out longer, along with Hanson and Duval, who you may remember went longer on their first stints too.
How does the LMP2 order look after the second round of stops? Dillmann continues to lead, with Pilet now up to second in the #16 RLR M Sport ORECA and van Uitert third for IDEC Sport. Masson is fourth, Lotterer fifth, then Pourchaire and Ghiotto. All have been in from the start, with Giorgio Roda next up in the #11 Proton machine started by Bent Viscaal.
Those were 13-lap stints for the #6 and #4 Porsches. Achieving that will have required not insignificant fuel save. Things are looking good for the German manufacturer: the car is quick, fast in a straightline and can eke out its fuel while maintaining strong pace.
Estre came in a few moments ago and did rejoin ahead of Nielsen, but is powerless to prevent the Ferrari from blasting back ahead into the second Mulsanne Chicane.
Five seconds will be added to the next pitstop for Job van Uitert's IDEC ORECA due to an unsafe release.
With Hanson and Duval coming into the pits, Andlauer returns to the lead. Nielsen is now second, ahead of Estre with Stevens shuffled back to fifth behind Aitken who is now the lead Caddy in fourth.
We've had a few driver changes in the LMGT3 class, with al Harthy now leading the class in the #46 WRT BMW that Valentino Rossi will drive later on. Valentin Hasse Clot is still in the #10 Aston Martin in second place, with Arnold Robin in the #78 ASP Lexus in for Hawksworth. Bernardo Sousa has taken over the #77 Proton Ford which sits fourth (in for Barker), his team-mate Stefano Gattuso (in for Olsen) next up.
We understand the extra stop for the WTR Caddy was to check if it had picked up debris. Ricky Taylor remains aboard the #101 machine which props up the Hypercar order behind the #007 Aston that had a slow puncture and #93 Peugeot that clipped the barrier at the Porsche Curves in Paul di Resta's hands.
Hasse-Clot moves ahead of al Harthy into the LMGT3 lead. The Omani is the bronze in WRT's BMW, while the Frenchman is the pro in the #10 Aston and has been aboard since the start, so WRT will get a chance to bite back later.
There is trouble further back in the LMGT3 pack as Heriau rotates while going side-by-side with Celia Martin at the right-hand kink before Indianapolis. The Frenchman does well to gather it up and continue. Both drivers have been in from the start, chipping away at their six hours of required bronze drive time.
We've not seen any more off-track moments for Andlauer, whose lead is back to 8.3s over Nielsen. Estre remains third ahead of Aitken, Stevens and Bamber, with Buemi 20s off the lead in seventh spot. Rast is eighth in the best of the BMWs, followed by Calado and Hanson.
"I've got so much washout at high speed, I'll just sit here," reports Stevens over the radio. He's running right behind Aitken, with Bamber behind forming a three-car train of Cadillacs running fourth through to sixth.
Fastest lap of the race from Dries Vanthoor in the #15 BMW that has slipped to 12th. A stop of a minute and a half suggests he just got new tyres in the pits. That tallies with what we were hearing from the Bimmer drivers before the race - that they felt they weren't a match for Ferrari, Porsche, Toyota and Cadillac on long-run pace.
Considering he's been in the car since the off, it has been a very impressive opening triple stint from Ryan Hardwick in the #92 Manthey Porsche. He's running seventh, with two strong team-mates in Richard Lietz and Riccardo Pera yet to drive.
There are just 2.8s between Dillmann and Pilet at the front in LMP2, while 7s behind van Uitert (who has a 5s penalty to serve at his next stop) is only just ahead of Masson in fourth. So a change of position is likely at the next stops.
We've barely mentioned the privateer Proton Porsche 963 so far, but Neel Jani has been dusted up a bit there. The Swiss, a winner here with the factory Porsche team in 2016, loses two spots in one go to Conway and Nick Tandy (in for Nasr in the #4 Porsche). Tandy then doesn't take long to get through on Conway, making use of a fresh set of tyres to claim 13th.
The next round of stops begins in LMP2, with Pilet peeling off from second position. That's a mouthful to say. Dillmann stays out to lead in the #43 machine which appears to be getting very good fuel mileage.
Hasse-Clot has pitted from the lead in LMGT3, with Derek DeBoer climbing on board the #10 Aston. The American is the bronze in that car, so should be more comparable on pace with Ahmad al Harthy, the Omani staying out to inherit the lead in WRT's #46 BMW.
Buemi has closed gradually onto the back of the Cadillac train and now has Bamber right in his sights. Aitken, at the head of the bunch, is slowly dropping back from Estre in third. Meanwhile, our leader Andlauer still has 5s in hand over Nielsen.
Pilet's #16 RLR M Sport ORECA is the new leader in LMP2, as Dillmann vacates the #43 Inter Europol example for Kuba Smiechowski, the team's silver. Franck Perera has taken over from Esteban Masson in the #48 VDS Panis ORECA, and runs third with Paul Lafargue fourth in the #28 IDEC ORECA after taking over from van Uitert. Fifth now is Mathias Kaiser in the #25 Algarve Pro machine, while Jamie Chadwick has taken over from Lotterer in the #18 IDEC entry and holds sixth on her Le Mans debut.
A 20-second stop-go penalty for pit speeding for the #36 Alpine, with Jules Gounon currently at the wheel. That's a painful one.
In comes Julien Andlauer from the lead, handing over the #5 PPM 963 to Mathieu Jaminet. Estre takes over at the front in car #6 and will be due in shortly, with Phil Hanson's #83 Ferrari, Tandy in the #4 Porsche and Malthe Jakobsen's #94 Peugeot also continuing for an extra lap.
Estre now comes in from the lead, which cycles Hanson and Jakobsen into the top two. That pair has consistently run longer on each stint, but a well-timed full course yellow that would boost them up the order has not been forthcoming as yet. A long way still to go through, as we feel our way into the third hour of this contest.
Twelve-lap stints there from the two Penske Porsches at the sharp end of the field. Jaminet and Vanthoor, Laurens, jump in as they each get a new set of Michelins. That's the medium compound. Use of the soft is likely to be limited this year courtesy of the high temperatures. Porsche was predicting in the week that the window when the soft will be used during the night will be very narrow indeed.
The Jota Cadillacs have lost out a little bit through the last round of stops. The #8 Toyota, #15 BMW and #51 Ferrari have all edged past Stevens and Bamber, who still run line astern as they have done for much of the race. The duo that locked out the front row have been sliding back however and currently sit 10th and 11th.
Jonathan Hui's LMGT3 Ferrari was moving very slowly on the approach to the second Mulsanne Chicane, which just caught out Stevens slightly. He locked up and darted left to avoid running into the back of Dries Vanthoor's BMW, and as he took up a normal line then got a clout on the rear from Antonio Giovinazzi who then moved ahead. An exciting few seconds that will have done no good for the Jota team's blood pressure.
I make that a 14-lap stint from the #94 Peugeot. That's gonna have required an awful lot of fuel save. It looks the French manufacturer's strategy, given its lack of pace, is to go long on the fuel and hope for a few lucky breaks.
Bamber now moves ahead of Stevens in what appeared to be an orchestrated swap. What can the two-time Le Mans winner with Porsche do in clear air?
Jakobsen's belated trip to the pits cycles Jaminet's #5 Porsche back to the lead, ahead of Antonio Fuoco's #50 Ferrari and Laurens Vanthoor in Porsche #6. Although the Jota Caddys have fallen back, the #311 Action Express Caddy holds station in fourth with Felipe Drugovich now aboard, ahead of Brendon Hartley's #8 Toyota and the #51 Ferrari of Giovinazzi in sixth. Then we have Dries Vanthoor's BMW, Bamber, Stevens and the second BMW of Frijns in 10th.
Catching back up with LMGT3, the #46 BMW is back in front with al Harthy re-taking the #10 Aston in which Derek DeBoer is just starting to find his way. Arnold Robin is third in the #78 Lexus, ahead of Tom van Rompuy's #81 TF Corvette, the #77 Ford of Sousa and the second Lexus of Razvan Umbrarescu. Remarkably, Hardwick is still in the #92 Porsche for a fourth stint and still holds seventh. An excellent effort there from a bronze driver.
There's not much in it at the front, with Jaminet holding a 2s advantage over Fuoco, while Vanthoor is less than 5s off the lead in the car that started right at the back of the Hypercar field. Similarly close is the battle over fifth, with Hartley having to get his elbows out to hold Giovinazzi behind through traffic.
Over in LMP2, Perera is closing bit by bit on Smiechowski, although has to have his wits about him as Giovinazzi comes steaming down his inside into the Ford Chicane. That looks set to become a proper battle for second before too long.
Jaminet gets caught behind an LMP2 car in the Dunlop Curve, and Fuoco doesn't waste the invitation to latch onto his tail. The Ferrari driver forces the leader to go defensive into both Mulsanne Chicanes.
Now Fuoco gets it done after a wheel-to-wheel battle down to Indianapolis. Jaminet had no option but to cede. Ferrari leads Le Mans.
Now then, Vanthoor has cruised up behind Jaminet too and looks like he wants a piece of the action. Will the #5 Porsche that dominated the opening hours be bumped back to third before too long?
It's been a good few minutes for Ferrari, as Giovinazzi moves ahead of Hartley into fifth. Will Stevens has continued to get dusted up by the cars around him and falls back another two spots behind Robin Frijns and Robert Kubica's Ferrari to run P11 overall in the polesitting car.
Pilet now pits from the lead in LMP2, having been in from the start. The pro-am line-up's bronze, Michael Jensen, now takes over, as Smiechowski cycles ahead to lead.
Jaminet is coming under real pressure now for his second place, and coming into the Porsche Curves gets boxed in behind the Kessel Racing Ferrari. Laurens Vanthoor doesn't need to be asked twice and slices cleanly by on the outside line as Jaminet jams on the anchors.
By: Autosport staff
