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WEC 24 Hours of Le Mans

The 76th Le Mans 24 Hours

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The No.82 Risi Competizione Ferrari leads LMGT2 with Mika Salo currently driving. The No.97 BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari runs second in class, six laps back.
The gap is now 2 minutes 16 seconds as Minassian continues to eat into Kristensen's lead.
The Van Merksteijn Porshe Spyder RS continues to hold the LMP2 lead by eight laps over the similar Team Essex entry.
Minassian takes another two seconds out of the lead on the following lap, bringing the gap down to 2 minutes 20 seconds.
The gap between Tom Kristensen and Nicolas Minassian is down to 2:22.461 after the latest round of stops. The Peugeot was almost two seconds quicker on the latest lap.
The No.5 Courage-Oreca Judd is in the garage again undergoing extensive repairs. This car is in eighth place overall, 22 laps down on the leader Kristensen but they have a three lap buffer to the Van Merksteijn Motorsport entry (still leading LMP2 by some eight laps) in ninth.
Tom Kristensen pits the leading No.2 Audi. The drivers have been doing lengthy spells in that car and Tom stays on for another stint.

They take tyres, fuel and resume the lead.
The leader is in the pits in the GT1 race. The 009 Aston Martin DBR9 comes in. No driver change for that car - Darren Turner continues, takes on fresh tyres, a tank of fuel and he rejoins the race, still with a one lap advantage over the No.63 Corvette.

Aston Martin are racing to victory at La Sarthe.
The No.7 Peugeot is in, Minassian climbs aboard as expected and he is away in search of Tom Kristensen's leading Audi.
The third placed No.9 Peugeot comes into the pits for routine service. Driver change for that car as Zonta hands over to Franck Montagny.
Nicolas Minassian has his helmet on and is ready to get into the No.7 Peugeot when it next stops. That will be the final driver change for the car running in second place and Minassian will run to the end.
The latest shower has stopped, the clouds having passed over the circuit.
Repairs to the No.3 car are swiftly done. The team wheel the car back out into pitlane, the engine is fired up and Rockenfeller is out on track again, still in fourth place.
The No.3 Audi is in fourth position overall and it has a comfortable 10 lap advantage over the Sarrazin No.8 Peugeot.
Marco Werner pits the No.1 Audi and hands it over to Frank Biela.
The No.3 and No.1 Audi cars pit at the same time.

The No.3 car with Mike Rockenfeller at the wheel is immediately whisked into the garage by the machanics.
With less than two hours remaining, Gene and Peugeot need to be progressing much more quickly than they currently are to have any hope of overhauling the leading Audi by pace alone.
Stephane Sarrazin in the No.8 Peugeot has caught and passed Marco Werner who is piloting the No.1 Audi. The move happened on the Mulsanne straight.

5th: Peugeot No.8
6th: Audi R10 No.1.
349 laps completed.

1) Kristensen - 3:31
2) Gene - 3:30
3) Zonta - 3:30.
The gap between Kristensen in the lead and Gene in second is down to 2:44 with just over two hours left to race.
This local shower has lasted a bit longer, and contained slightly heavier rain than the last sprinkle 20-30 minutes ago.
Amazingly, the No.2 Audi appears to be undamaged after the contact. Kristensen has stayed out there and not visited pitlane.
Tom Kristensen clocks a 3:44 lap after that incident, in comparison to 3:33 for Marc Gene.
The Audi with Tom Kristensen at the controls continued after being spun round.
The No.2 Audi - the leading car in this race, has been nerfed off the circuit by another car - the Barazi Epsilon Zytek machine.
The reported rain shower is continuing to hit the track and is making conditions tricky.
A rear bodywork change also for the No.8 car but there is a far, far bigger incident occurring on the circuit!
The No.2 Audi has been involved in a clash at the Dunlop Chicane ...
Driver change during this pitstop for the No.8 car. Pedro Lamy climbs out, Stephane Sarrazin in.

The rear wing is also going to be changed on this stop.
The first flying laps after the stops are a 3:40.123 for Kristensen and a 3:33.468 for Gene. The gap, however, has increased over the round of stops to 3:06.375.
Pedro Lamy gets away again after being helped by the ACO marshals down at Arnage.

The No.8 Peugeot has made it back to the pits and the team will investigate the front end to see if there is any damage.
The No.8 Peugeot of Pedro Lamy is in the tyre wall ...
Yet another light shower passes over the circuit.
The leader pits in the No.2 Audi. Tom Kristensen brings the car to the Audi pit stall and gets routine service.

Kristensen is away still a couple of minutes and more in the lead.
Marc Gene pits the No.7 Audi from his pursuit of the leader.

As Kristensen heads in, Gene is already rolling away.
The lead gap is down to 2:53.297 as Gene continues to close the advantage by a few seconds per lap.
The light sprinkling from a few minutes ago has now stopped all around the circuit.
While it was all happening with the Peugeot No.8 car, the No.3 Audi quietly came in for a routine service, no driver change - Rockenfeller sill in the cockpit - and rejoined the track almost un-noticed.
The eight car is cooled, pushed out of the garage and is underway once again.

When this sequence played out overnight, the other cars were also soon in for the same treatment.
The No.8 Peugeot pits from fifth but it is trouble ... the car is pushed back in to the garage for cooling liquid nitrogen to be pumped into the sidepods, as the team again appear to have temperature problems.

By: Geoff Creighton, Emlyn Hughes

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