Le Mans 24 Hours race day
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LMP1
Menezes has pitted from third, and on his outlap he holds a 25s lead over Jani in the second Rebellion R-13, that's looking fairly secure now.
GTE PRO
Hand took a good six tenths out of Lietz on that last lap, so we may get a Porsche v Ford battle for second once again, but Hand would have to string that together regularly as the gap is over six seconds.
LMP2
In gets Nicolas Lapierre to take the #36 Signatech-Alpine to the end. It's likely to be too little, too late, but it'll be interesting to see whether Rusinov feels the need to keep pushing with two laps in hand.
Autosport
Alonso's talked of the great honour of leading laps at Le Mans, as part of his triple crown bid: 
LMP2
Trouble for Hugo de Sadeleer, who has taken over the #32 United Autosports Ligier from Montoya. He's trailing abck to the pits with a left-rear puncture, which could spell the end of their podium aspirations.
Pit stop
Nakajima has taken another pitstop - his 35th of the race - this time around and takes on fuel.
LMP1
Nakajima's still got a good 32s advantage when he exits the pitlane.
LMP2
De Sadeleer has made it back to the pits, but that problem has dropped the #32 Ligier to fifth, a lap down to new fourth-placed man Matthieu Vaxiviere in the #28 TDS ORECA.
Crash
OH NO! The #7 Toyota is slowing down!
LMP1
It's crawling down the Mulsanne straight! Unbelievable.
LMP1
Kobayashi's now driving at 80km/h.
LMP1
Well, there's little doubting that for Toyota to win, it's going to have to shake off its Le Mans curse.
LMP1
Concern on the faces of the Toyota mechanics, and it's all feeling a bit deja vu.
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LMP1
On the replay it's clear that the Toyota suddenly loses power as it cross the start/finish line, passing a GTE backmarker before it blasts past him again.
Almost an entire lap at 80km/h is painful.
Almost an entire lap at 80km/h is painful.
LMP1
Kobayashi's approaching Indianapolis now.
GTE AM
Small bit of housekeeping: the GTE Am leading Porsche now has a lap on its nearest rival, the #54 Spirit of Race Ferrari.
LMP1
Yet another long straight to negotiate slowly as Nakajima goes a lap clear in the #8.
Pit stop
But Kobayashi's massively picked up his pace! He's virtually at full-speed again as he pits.
LMP2
Understandably amid the Toyota excitement, we have yet to alert you to the driver changes in the battle for third in LMP2. Jonathan Hirschi and Matthieu Vaxiviere are out, Tristan Gommendy and Loic Duval in to the finish in an all-French battle.
LMP1
Plenty of attention around the rear of the Toyota, they have 11 laps that is keeping them in second.
LMP1
That was a 1m09.9s stop, so not much slower than a standard refuelling stop. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't hurt Toyota currently.
But tell that to the #7 drivers. Any chance of a win looks gone.
Although, the Toyota curse could strike again.
But tell that to the #7 drivers. Any chance of a win looks gone.
Although, the Toyota curse could strike again.
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Pit stop
In other LMP1 news, admittedly not very interesting, Robertson has pitted again in the sole remaining Manor-Ginetta.
As you were.
As you were.
LMP1
Patrick Dempsey and Michael Fassbender discussing the race on camera there.
Presumably they're talking about the finer details of hybrid systems and LMP1 cars.
Presumably they're talking about the finer details of hybrid systems and LMP1 cars.
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The Toyota mechanics inspected the #7 Toyota in the pits but sent Kobayashi back on his way again (Photo: LAT)
LMP1
So that Toyota curse. Actually, the team has confirmed that Kobayashi missed his pitstop lap...
LMP1
Maybe Kobayashi wanted to spice up the race?
GTE AM
Spin for Euan Hankey's TF Aston Martin down at the Porsche Curves. Slow zone in place.
Gary Watkins
That would tally with the way Kobayashi drove. He was at 80km/h going through the majority of that lap, possibly on all-electric power. You would expect he then gunned it when Toyota knew he had enough fuel to make it around.
LMP1
Toyota said it had prepared for any surprise scenarios Le Mans could throw at it and that was well managed all things considered.
The team and Kobayashi minimised the time lost and it lost just one lap to the #8 car.
The team and Kobayashi minimised the time lost and it lost just one lap to the #8 car.
LMP2
Duval had managed to cut four seconds out of Gommendy's lead, but the slow zone for Hankey's spin could negate that. It currently stands at 2m46s (although if you halve that, you arrive at the 1m24s that we had before the slow zone).
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LMP1
The two Rebellions have made their planned stops, Menezes still comfortably leads Jani in third.
GTE PRO
The GTE Pro order is looking more settled at the front than it has done for a while, but there is a good dice going on between Nicky Catsburg's BMW and Earl Bamber's Porsche. They are half a second apart in the fight for 12th in class, nine laps down on the leaders.
LMP1
Button's lapping some GTE cars in quick succession, he's looking a bit tired on that onboard.
To be fair to him, so are we, and we're not driving an LMP1 car.
To be fair to him, so are we, and we're not driving an LMP1 car.
LMP2
It's fair to say Lapierre is still pushing hard - he was 4.5s quicker than Rusinov that time around, but it's not going to make much of a different at this stage unfortunately.
LMP1
Button's doing 3m26s laps at the minute, which is firmly LMP2 laptimes, but considering the problems that car has had, it's probably a combination of traffic and nursing the car a tad.
That car is still 41dt overall and fifth in class.
That car is still 41dt overall and fifth in class.
By: Matt Beer
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