Le Mans 24 Hours race day
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Slow Zone
Nasr has been put back on the track after his off at the first Mulsanne Chicane. We've still got a slow zone for the time being though.
Green flag
The slow zone has been cleared after Nasr's car was recovered.
LMP1
Orudzhev's progress is clear now he's come back on sequence and visited the pits. He's 19s behind the #3 Rebellion in the battle for third, having been half a minute down when he first hopped into the #17 SMP.
LMP1
Alonso can smell the lead! He's within half a second of Lopez now.
Swift work from the marshals to recover Nasr's car
LMP2
Pizzitola lost out through the slow zone that time - Negrao takes almost 10s out of him to reduce the gap to 1m05s. Canal is third, 1m49s off the lead, as Panis-Barthez's strong opening to the race continues.
LMP1
Alonso goes for it and sweeps into the lead! He tees up a run off Arnage and gets past Lopez as the Toyota pair clear a GTE Porsche.
LMP1
Orudzhev has dropped away again in the SMP car. He's 28s off Beche.
Here's the pass for the lead, on the approach to the Porsche Curves
GTE PRO
Farfus is making good progress in the #82 BMW in this stint. He's cleared Pla's Ford for fifth, and he's only three seconds behind Tandy's fourth-placed Porsche.
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LMP2
Perrodo is now being caught for fifth by Lafargue in the #48 IDEC car, which started the race from pole. Expect TDS to bring him in at the next pitstop for Matthieu Vaxiviere to run a quadruple.
LMP2
And in the time it took to type, Lafargue is through to fifth. At the front, Pizzitola has built his lead back to 1m15 after Negrao lost 6 seconds last time around.
LMP1
Alonso is breezing away at the front. His last lap was a 3m19.940s and he's now 7s up the road from Lopez.
Quote
Here's Filipe Albuquerque with more on why the #22 United Autosports Ligier has lost ground:
"The second stint, something flew off the car. I couldn’t understand what it was and I couldn’t tell the team what it was, they realised it was the GPS sensor. We lost seven minutes fixing that problem, which put us two laps down.
"It’s a shame, we don’t have the pace for the top two [G-Drive and Signatech ORECAs]. For the rest I think we can fight, but it’s an even fight. We can’t afford another single mistake or bad luck, and hope the other guys have some little problems.”
"The second stint, something flew off the car. I couldn’t understand what it was and I couldn’t tell the team what it was, they realised it was the GPS sensor. We lost seven minutes fixing that problem, which put us two laps down.
"It’s a shame, we don’t have the pace for the top two [G-Drive and Signatech ORECAs]. For the rest I think we can fight, but it’s an even fight. We can’t afford another single mistake or bad luck, and hope the other guys have some little problems.”
Pit stop
Lopez brings the #7 in now and the team fits a new left rear tyre to the TS050 HYBRID. Tha 47s stop was definitely an enforced one.
GTE PRO
It's hotting up at the front of GTE Pro. Makowiecki and Vanthoor have been caught up by Bourdais, so now we have three cars fighting it out for class bragging rights, two Porsches and a Ford.
LMP1
More progress from Kraihamer in the ByKolles, who is up to eighth and only 31s behind the DragonSpeed car of Hedman now.
GTE PRO
Lead change! Vanthoor lines up Makowiecki and gets the move done into Mulsanne, and then dives straight into the pits.
GTE PRO
And another one - Bourdais sweeps around the outside of Makowiecki at the first Mulsanne chicane at into the lead of the class in the #68 Ford.
Information
Toyota has confirmed the #7 had a left-rear puncture.
LMP1
That unscheduled stop for the #7 means Alonso's lead over Lopez is now 55s.
LMP2
Canal is beginning to fall away now in third - he lost five seconds to Negrao last time around. Pizzitola's lead currently stands at 1m17s.
Safety car
We have a safety car thanks to debris from the punctured tyre on Gabriel Aubry's #38 Jota. That team really has had a difficult race so far, with problems for both its cars.
Just your standard lead battle in GTE Pro. Utterly relentless in this class as always.
Pit stop
Rebellion decided to bring Beche in for a stop. He had set the fastest first sector of the race so far on that previous lap!
Cars are currently being held at pit exit while one of the safety cars comes past.
GTE PRO
The two GTE Pro leaders are in the pits, and are held at the end of the queue for the safety car! Disaster for them, and a huge stroke of luck for the #92 Porsche, which has Kevin Estre back at the wheel.
GTE PRO
All the other cars that came in on the same lap as the #92 - including the #69 Ford (Dixon), the #81 BMW (Catsburg) and the #67 Ford (Tincknell) are likewise going to be quids in here.
Debris from this puncture for the #38 LMP2 machine is the reason for this safety car period
LMP1
Beche was stuck in the pits for almost three minutes there! That drops him to fifth, behind the sister #1 Rebellion that has been playing catch-up since the start.
LMP1
It also means the two Toyotas are separated by 2m40s behind different safety cars.
LMP2
The safety car has been bad news for three of the LMP2 runners on the lead lap. Capillaire and Lafargue both pitted just beforehand, while Perrodo came in shortly afterwards and was held at the end of the pitlane. All three are now one lap down.
GTE PRO
So, the Rothmans Porsche (Richard Lietz took over from Makowiecki in that stop) has gone from fighting to the lead to seventh in GTE Pro. The Bourdais Ford, now with Joey Hand at the wheel, has slumped to ninth behind the #93 Porsche, which Tandy handed over to Earl Bamber.
Rebellion driver Andre Lotterer has explained what happened at the start of the race and confirmed that there was an issue with the nose of his R-13 as he went through the Dunlop Curve and into the chicane on the opening lap.
"I had a good run and thought I'd get close to the Toyotas and maybe stress them out, but not do anything crazy," he said. "Suddenly the front went super light as the nose started to come off and I didn't think that I was even going to make the right."
Lotterer explained that the team had told him that there had been a "mounting issue" with the nose cone.
"I had a good run and thought I'd get close to the Toyotas and maybe stress them out, but not do anything crazy," he said. "Suddenly the front went super light as the nose started to come off and I didn't think that I was even going to make the right."
Lotterer explained that the team had told him that there had been a "mounting issue" with the nose cone.
One of the safety car queues has passed the limping #38 that is responsible for the race being neutralised
GTE AM
GTE Am leader Andlauer has pitted under the safety car to hand over the #77 Porsche to Matt Campbell. That hands the class lead to MacNeil in the #84 Ferrari, which hasn't yet stopped.
Information
Safety car is in this lap. The leading car has completed 62 so far.
Green flag
And we're back underway.
LMP2
Pizzitola pits from the lead immediately as the race resumes. He's followed in by the #34 Ligier of David Heinemeier-Hansson, which had just gone one lap down.
By: Matt Beer
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