Le Mans 24 Hours Live Commentary and Updates
Minute-by-minute updates for the 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours
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Ye Yifei has pitted the leading #83 Ferrari, with Phil Hanson taking over.
Same strategy for Miguel Molina's #50 Ferrari, with refuelling and a tyre change during this pitstop. It rejoins with Nicklas Nielsen at the wheel... 11 seconds ahead of the #51!
Pier Guidi has pitted the #51 Ferrari from third, with a full service – fuel and new tyres. It's now fourth, 97 seconds away from the lead, but the sister cars will pit soon.
In LMP2, Oliver Gray has handed the class-leading VDS Panis entry to Esteban Massot, with their lead over AO by TF's Louis Deletraz up to 19 seconds.
Porsche's Campbell has been keeping the same pace as the Ferraris, with a 23-second deficit to the leader. The #8 Toyota has just pitted from fifth, Ryo Hirakawa was already 45 seconds down. Sebastien Buemi is taking over.
It's still pretty tight between the Ferraris at the front of the Hypercar field. Ye (#83) has a two-second gap on Molina (#50) and Pier Guidi (#51), who are battling.
Talking about Peugeot, the French marque has been trying to offset its lack of competitivity (which the squad is very upset with) with strategy – having longer stints but changing tyres every two stints, when most other cars go four stints with each tyre set.
“Given we’re not really in the fight, we have to do something different with strategy,” Stoffel Vandoorne explained.
Drama at Mulsanne! The #94 Peugeot – the only one still on the lead lap – was spun around by the #35 Alpine. Two Frenchmen, Loic Duval and Paul-Loup Chatin, were in action; Duval had to go around the roundabout, like Kobayashi earlier.
We know staying on the lead lap will be critical in this race, as the single safety car will bunch up all those cars (which not everybody appreciates). As of now, 18 Hypercars are still on the lead lap – all but the #101 Cadillac, the #93 Peugeot and the #007 Aston Martin.
In GT3, Team WRT's Kelvin van der Linde is slowly pulling away in the #46 BMW, enjoying a 26-second gap on Manthey's #92 Porsche before the latter pitted.
A former Renault F1 junior (like a number of drivers currently enjoying success in motorsport), Ye joined Ferrari in 2024 after impressing in endurance, winning the 2021 ELMS title. This seems to be paying off for him.
Ye was on a charge in the run-up to that round of pitstops and got the overcut. The driver of the yellow Ferrari clawed back the deficit to the red ones in the laps after they pitted - race leader Molina came in three laps before him in #50 and Pier Guidi two in #51.
Ye now leads Molina by one second, Pier Guidi by three, and Campbell by 20.
Darren Leung seems to have given up on restarting the #95 McLaren, which caused a full-course yellow when it stopped on the Mulsanne straight. The Briton has taken his helmet off.
Campbell pits and emerges in fourth. Ye (#83) gets the lead from Molina (#50) and Pier Guidi (#51)... with all three Ferraris within 1.5s.
All three Ferrari Hypercars have pitted, which means that the #6 Porsche is temporarily leading with Matt Campbell at the wheel.
The gap at the front has been pretty stable in the LMP2 class. VDS Panis Racing's Oliver Gray still leads AO by TF's Louis Deletraz by some eight seconds. Reshad de Gerus and Nick Yelloly are right behind for Iron Lynx - Proton and Inter Europol Competition.
You may remember how Paul Di Resta made Peugeot's race even harder when he crashed the #93 in the Porsche curves as he attempted to overtake the #150 Ferrari GT3.
"For some reason the GT car parked itself in the middle of the road and I got a bit of aero wash, lost the rear," Di Resta explained. "Rather than hit it, I chose to think there was more space and I wouldn't hit the wall. Unfortunately I hit the wall and took the front- and rear-end damage.
"But when you've got the performance we have, you have to take a bit more risks. And that's what led to what happened, because I was trying to keep a slipstream from the Porsche in front."
Back to cool racing T-shirts. Someone sitting near the Autosport/motorsport.com enclave is wearing a nice one paying tribute to the 'Pink Pig' Porsche 917/20 that raced here at Le Mans in 1971. The livery - and our neighbour's T-shirt - proclaimed the different cuts of pork. Wonder if it subliminally affected my choice for dinner - I went for the pork!
The #51 Ferrari driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi just pitted, but before that, all three red (well, one is yellow) cars were within five seconds at the front of the field.
Thanks Ewan! After doing six to 12 hours of live commentary in the previous nine Le Mans, I'm here for just the next three hours, and still fresh. Let's see how the race evolves, it's so tight in all three classes!
And as the first quarter of this great race elapses, I'll bow out for now and hand over to Ben Vinel who will use his expertise to take you into the night!
The stint that Ye has put together has been pretty outstanding really - the gap to Porsche's #6 now over 20 seconds as the sixth hour draws to a close.
This race isn't panning out as we'd expected. Ferrari has a much bigger advantage than anyone expected, but at least it's a close battle between the three 499Ps. Pier Guidi is edging towards race leader Molina, and Ye is making progress in his pursuit of Pier Guidi - he's about a second behind.
Darkness is starting to set in and the headlights are making picking out cars pretty difficult, but that's the charm of Le Mans, isn't it!
A great battle between the #199 and the #9 for second in LMP2 as Deletraz puts the former ahead - the move complicated by a Cadillac making its way through on the inside.
The pole-sitting #29 TDS Racing car, currently fifth in LMP2, has been assessed a drive-through for not respecting FCY procedure.
The #150 Richard Mille AF Corse LMGT3 entry has been given the same punishment.
The #43 returns to its true position behind the #48 and #9 in LMP2 after Yelloly's earlier gaffe with its latest pitstop, though the car is well within half a minute of the class lead. We still aren't a quarter of the way through the race quite yet.
The gap between the lead Ferraris in Hypercar has been cut right down to six seconds or so. The #83 is within 10 seconds of the overall lead as well!
Leung has been asked to take a look from outside the car - that's permitted, as long as he remains within close proximity of his entry.
So we are back to green flag conditions, with the #46 WRT BMW pitting from what was the lead of LMGT3.
Rossi hands over to Kelvin Van der Linde for the next few stints - a job well done by the Doctor.
The #60 Iron Lynx Mercedes remains in the pits after crawling back earlier with seemingly no fix coming soon for the team. That's bitter luck.
Poor Darren Leung has nothing he can do as his McLaren sits motionless. Strangely, the FCY is already ending... a very short period there.
Local yellows fly at the exit of the Michelin chicane as the #95 United Autosports McLaren grinds to a halt.
That turns into a FCY for the second time in the opening quarter of the race.
That takes de Vries out of this epic train behind the #4, #311 and #38 which is now for ninth after the #94 pitted out of sequence, as it has done almost all race so far.
The #5 Porsche is now some 15 seconds behind now with its ailments.
Huge penalty for the #7 Toyota: A FIFTY-second stop and go penalty for overspeeding in the pitlane.
That will be why the team manager was summoned earlier - but that must have been a huge overspeedn for such a severe punishment. Ouch.
Pitstops underway in LMP2 and the top two both come in: the #48 and #9 being turned around without issue.
That leaves the #43 out in the lead ahead of the #29, which leads the Pro-Am class.
"So pedal will be soft, have some margin." Christensen is told by his team.
The response: "Yeah it is soft already!" That may be an indication as to why he is struggling in that five-car battle. He has dropped right back already.
It does get fun!
Traffic costs Vesti through Karting corner and gives the #5 a sniff into the Ford chicane.
But Christensen has to skip across the chicane to avoid contact and, on the following lap, Button and de Vries take advantage of the Porsche's dirty tyres to go through.
A heck of a battle is brewing for the last position in the top 10 as the #4, #311, #5, #38 and #7 line up in a four-car train. This could get very fun, very quickly.
The #6 cycles to the front as the #83 makes its latest stop and falls to fourth.
The #4 did stay just ahead of the #311 which will be to the dissatisfaction of Vesti in the Cadillac.
Meanwhile, the team manager for the Toyota #7 has been summoned to the stewards - something to keep an eye out for.
By: Autosport staff
