Le Mans 24 Hours race day
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LMP1
Buemi has increased his advantage again in the #8 Toyota and is close to re-establishing a 40s advantage.
GTE PRO
Garcia has gotten away from Briscoe since the start of this stint in what had been (and, to be fair, still is) the best battle in GTE Pro right now. 3.6s is now the gap between the Corvette and Ford.
Pit stop
Lotterer has just been in and out of the pits. A smattering of LMP2 cars have also just made stops further down the class order.
GTE AM
Car #70 - the MR Racing GTE Am Ferrari - has been reported to the stewards for speeding in the pitlane.
LMP2
Rusinov has been in and out of the pits in the #26 G-Drive ORECA, but he's still a lap clear of Buret in the Panis Barthez Ligier.
LMP1
Lotterer is lapping about a second faster than Laurent at the moment as he chases his team-mate down. The #1 has 45s to make up if there's to be a proper contest for third.
We're in a really stagnant phase of the race at the moment, with the battle between the #63 Corvette and #69 Ford about about the closest battle on track right now.
LMP1
Conway then loses 4s in traffic on the next lap, so the gap is back out to 33.8s.
LMP1
Conway has got the lead gap down to about 30s, so he's made solid progress relative to Buemi since he returned to the car.
LMP1
Here's our report from the previous hour, during which the leading #8 Toyota was caught slightly by the chasing Conway: 
LMP1
Conway has been in and out of the pits - with the leading Toyotas having both completed 26 conventional stops - and is 34s behind race leader Buemi.
GTE PRO
Garcia takes over from Rockenfeller and the #63 Corvette jumps ahead of Briscoe (replacing Dixon in the #69 Ford) for fifth in class. Meanwhile, Gimmi Bruni is back at the wheel of the second-placed #91 Porsche, and Dirk Muller takes Joey Hand's place in the #68 Ford.
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GTE PRO
Sure enough, Giovinazzi earns a drive-through for pitlane speeding. Whoops.
GTE PRO
Estre brings in the GTE Pro-leading Porsche to hand over to Michael Christensen, while Dixon and Rockenfeller are both in the pits too.
GTE AM
The fight for second in GTE Am is starting to tighten. Francesco Castellacci in the #54 Ferrari is chasing down Ben Keating's #85 Ferrari, with 17s splitting them right now.
GTE PRO
Giovinazzi's #52 Ferrari is reported to the stewards for pitlane speeding. Naughty boy.
Pit stop
In comes Lotterer, who is now two minutes behind the sister #3 Rebellion in the fight for third. We're back under normal racing conditions again, too.
LMP2
Buret is now back in the Panis Barthez Ligier.
GTE AM
The #88 Porsche that crashed earlier on with Matteo Cairoli at the wheel is an official retirement, the second in GTE Am after the #98 Aston Martin.
LMP2
Vaxiviere is still stuck at Dunlop, but a tractor has been dispatched to recover the car.
Toyotas - watch your speed.
Slow Zone
We've got another yellow flag - make that a slow zone - in place for the #28 TDS Racing ORECA of Vaxiviere, who's beached the car in the gravel in the first sector.
Quote
We spoke to Tincknell earlier this week about his monster 29G shunt at Eau Rouge in the WEC opener at Spa. Here are his recollections:
"As I turned in [to Eau Rouge] I just had massive bottoming, splitter hit the ground, awful sound of carbon crunched against the tarmac. And because Eau Rouge is so steep, all you see is steering wheel and sky until you get to the top. So I was seeing steering wheel and sky, and then it was steering wheel and wall.
"I just took my hands off the wheel, closed my eyes and I wasn’t sure how it was going to end up because Pietro Fittipaldi the day before broke both his legs [in the DragonSpeed BR1].
"It’s funny – this car gives you so much confidence to push, it tells you you’re gonna slide out or understeer before it actually does it. It was such a shock to crash, because the car inspires so much confidence, you can throw it around.
"The shock of sitting there, car crushed into a million pieces… bloody hell. I was shocked I was ok."
"As I turned in [to Eau Rouge] I just had massive bottoming, splitter hit the ground, awful sound of carbon crunched against the tarmac. And because Eau Rouge is so steep, all you see is steering wheel and sky until you get to the top. So I was seeing steering wheel and sky, and then it was steering wheel and wall.
"I just took my hands off the wheel, closed my eyes and I wasn’t sure how it was going to end up because Pietro Fittipaldi the day before broke both his legs [in the DragonSpeed BR1].
"It’s funny – this car gives you so much confidence to push, it tells you you’re gonna slide out or understeer before it actually does it. It was such a shock to crash, because the car inspires so much confidence, you can throw it around.
"The shock of sitting there, car crushed into a million pieces… bloody hell. I was shocked I was ok."
GTE PRO
IndyCar veteran Kanaan pits the fourth-placed #67 Ford to hand back the reigns to Harry Tincknell.
LMP1
Conway has more or less stabilised the gap at the front, but then he is on slightly fresher tyres than Buemi.
GTE PRO
The #81 BMW has emerged from the garage after 21 minutes. It's now the 15th and final runner in GTE Pro, and 45th overall of 51 runners.
LMP2
Lapierre brings the Signatech Alpine in from third in LMP2. He's a lap ahead of the polesitting IDEC Sport ORECA so, baring disaster in the stop, won't lose a position.
GTE PRO
The Corvette-Ford battle rageth on. Dixon is back ahead of Rockenfeller now.
LMP1
A little straight-on moment there, for Lotterer at the Dunlop Chicane.
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Slow Zone
We're restriction free again as the most recent slow zone has been removed.
LMP1
Conway, who is 40s behind the #8 on the road, has also brought the #7 in to serve its penalty.
LMP1
In comes Buemi in the Toyota to serve his stop/go penalty.
There's no sign of the Pink Pig - or Porsche, for that matter - being stopped in GTE Pro right now
And the LMP2 order has shaken out like so...
GTE PRO
The sole surviving #81 BMW is in the garage for a new radiator after an apparent water leak; that's dropped it almost to last in GTE Pro. It's now on the same lap as the #93 Porsche, which was delayed by electrical problems in the night.
Here's how the leading LMP1 positions look currently, before either of the Toyota serve their stop/go penalties
GTE PRO
Rockenfeller has cleared Dixon to get the Corvette into the top five.
Crash
Oooh! Both Toyota are give one-minute stop/go penalties for speeding in slow zones.
By: Matt Beer
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