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H12: Audi lead with ease at halfway

Heading towards mid-distance, the diesels continue to lead at Le Mans, with Audi filling first and second positions, and Peugeot chasing in third

Tom Kristensen leads the Le Mans 24 Hours, three laps ahead of Marco Werner, who has taken over the No. 1 Audi from Emanuele Pirro.

Jacques Villeneuve has taken over the third-placed Peugeot from Marc Gene after a long stop in which the team struggled to make the Canadian comfortable in the cockpit.

Jean-Christophe Boullion's Pescarolo, Pedro Lamy's Peugeot, Jan Charouz's Lola and Martin Short's Pescarolo round off the top seven positions overall.

Lamy lost time during his pitstop when the team cleared out the cooling system of the 908 and topped up the oil, leading to speculation that the car could be suffering from overheating problems.

GT1 cars fill positions eight to 15, with Aston Martin running first and second in the hands of Peter Kox and Rickard Rydell. The gap between the two has drop further to 20.188 seconds as the British manufacturer continues to dominate the class.

Christophe Bouchut set his fastest lap of the race, with 3:51.945 in the dark, and lies fourth in class, 11th overall ahead of Jamie Davies' Aston Martin.

Miguel Amaral had an accident at the Porsche Curves in the luckless Quifel Team ASM Lola, though the Portuguese was able to return to the pits for the team to begin repairs to the one-time class leading car.

Another car in the wars was the Team Modena Aston Martin of Antonio Garcia, which sustained rear-end damage after the Spaniard became embroiled in a battle with an LMP2 car and spun at the second chicane on the Mulsanne Straight.

Romain Iannetta, running second in the LMP2 class in the Noel del Bello Courage, also stopped out on the track and has dropped out of the top 20 overall.

In GT2, the Risi Competizione Ferrari of Mika Salo continues to lead the way, ahead of Richard Leitz's IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche.

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