Le Mans practice and first qualifying
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LMP1
Fastest time in the first and second sector for Lotterer now...
GTE AM
Ledogar puts CarGuy Racing back on top in Am with a 3m58.387s.
LMP1
Boo... Lotterer brings the #1 Rebellion into the pits. Alonso fastest of all now in the middle sector.
GTE PRO
New fastest time in Pro as Antonio Felix da Costa sets a 3m55.718s in the #82 BMW, a fraction faster than Tandy was in the #93 Porsche.
LMP1
Alonso's final sector isn't an improvement, though, and he remains fourth despite getting within a second of the pace. The #11 and #17 SMP BR Engineering BR1s are fifth and sixth respectively, 3.4s and 4.4s off the pace respectively.
Here's the aforementioned Duqueine-produced JH20 F3000 car.
GTE PRO
Times rolling in thick and fast in Pro right now - Antonio Garcia briefly had the #63 Corvette on top before Tandy improved to a 3m53.704s in the #93 Porsche, going fastest by a full 1.3s.
LMP2
We were just starting to type that the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA had gone top with Gabriel Aubry, but he is instantly usurped by Jonathan Hirschi in the #39 Graff ORECA by 0.15s.
GTE PRO
Tandy has lowered the bar to 3m53.186s at the head of the GTE Pro order, and now Michael Christensen - co-leader of the WEC points with Kevin Estre - has made it a Porsche 1-2 in the #92 car.
Stopwatch
Alonso is fastest on his next lap, and improving again now. His current benchmark is a 3m20.941s, but don't expect that to stand for long.
Nope - no LMP1 improvement for now. Alonso ended up 3.4s down on his lap, and Conway was 2.5s off his personal best.
GTE AM
Matt Campbell is now fastest in GTE Am on a 3m56.495s in the #77 Proton Porsche, knocking Francesco Castellacci and the Spirit of Race Ferrari from the top spot.
LMP2
Ricky Taylor slots the #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA-Gibson 07 into third in class with a 3m31.416s.
LMP1
Sarrazin put the #17 SMP BR1 fifth before pitting and is 2.192s off the pace - so around two tenths slower than the #3 Rebellion in fourth.
GTE PRO
Christensen goes almost a second clear of the field in GTE Pro with a 3m52.395s in the #92 Porsche. Behind Tandy in second, it's Garcia's Corvette, then Harry Tincknell's Ford and da Costa's BMW.
Yellow flag
There's a yellow flag out right now at marshal post 30 in the final part of the lap.
Information
The pit exit had been closed as a result of that yellow but has now been reopened.
GTE PRO
Another improvement for Christensen in the #92 Porsche. It's a 3m52.149s this time around, another two tenths faster than his last effort.
Rain
Race control also says a shower is expected at 1715, so in 15 minutes or so. The clouds look a little bit greyer overhead, but nothing particularly ominous.
We reckon the original cause of the yellow on the exit of the Porsche Curves was for the ARC Bratislava Ligier running wide and pulling up a section of kerb, before Japanese Am Hoshino spun into the gravel in the #88 Dempsey Porsche.
Full Course Yellow
We're back to green after our first full-course yellow of Le Mans week, which was for the stranded #88 Dempsey Proton Porsche of Satoshi Hoshino
LMP2
There's been a flurry of changes in LMP2 - the pace-setting #39 Graf ORECA has improved to a 3m28.959s, almost two seconds clear of Aubry in the second-placed #38 DC Racing ORECA. The second Jota Sport run DC car is third, the time set by 2017 IMSA champion Ricky Taylor.
LMP2
Meanwhile we've got a slow-moving car on track - its the #28 TDS Racing ORECA with Matthieu Vaxiviere, whose name is causing our correspondent some vexation in the spelling department. The Frenchman brings the car slowly back to the pits, having taken the shortcut through the Porsche Curves.
LMP1
All eight LMP1s have times on the board now - not that they’re all competitive. While we have a Noah’s ark of Toyotas, Rebellions and SMP BR1s occupying the top six, the ByKolles has just jumped up to 14th on a 3m34.807s in the hands of Dillmann, and the DragonSpeed BR1 is 57th on a 4m33s…
LMP2
The TDS engineers are now poring over the car, which appears undamaged, and plugged in a laptop. Having only completed one installation lap so far, it's not been a great start to their session.
LMP1
Not for long, though. Ben Hanley puts the DragonSpeed car sixth between the two similar SMP cars on a 3m24.446s.
LMP1
Alonso has the #8 Toyota on top after just over an hour's running
Crash
Kamui Kobayashi is now at the wheel of the #7 Toyota, and goes fastest of all in the middle sector - but then goes off!
LMP2
Amid that excitement, Pastor Maldonado has gone quickest in LMP2 for DragonSpeed, ahead of the ByKolles in eighth overall. His 3m28.730s puts him just a tenth clear of Jean-Eric Vergne in the #26 TDS Racing ORECA, which is going rather better than it's sister car, still in the garage.
There's rain again at the back end of the circuit, and Kobayashi went off at Mulsanne corner, nudging one of the barriers. He has got going again, though, and we're back to normal out on track.
Apologies - Kobayashi didn't quite go into the barrier. He definitely did keep it going, though, before returning the car to the pits.
Here's Kobayashi's viewpoint from his earlier off
GTE AM
New best time in Am as Matt Campbell lowers the bar to a 3m55.304s in the #77 Proton Porsche.
LMP1
The #7 was also displaced in the order during that hectic couple of minutes, with Lotterer now second on a 3m21.257s.
Rain
Race control has confirmed there's a 'light shower level 1' around Mulsanne corner.
Dillmann has put the ByKolles eighth in the order, 6.902s off the overall pace and 2.4s behind the #11 SMP BR1 of Aleshin.
Twitter
We've got sunshine again on the pit straight, but James Newbold has just got excited about how gloomy the skies towards the back end of the circuit look from onboards through the first couple of corners.
By: Matt Beer
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