H12: Peugeot continue to lead Audi

Nicolas Minassian had a spin exiting the final chicane early in the hour, but recovered to pass Dindo Capello and increase the lead of the No.7 car to a full lap - although Capello was able to unlap himself again when Minassian pitted to hand over to Jacques Villeneuve.

Villeneuve leads the race by just over three minutes from the No.2 Audi, but Capello is now lapping quicker than the No.7 Peugeot.

There are similar gaps between all the frontrunners with Christian Klien, third in the No.9 car, two and a half minutes behind Capello and nearly three minutes ahead of Alexandre Premat in the No.3 Audi.

Premat has some breathing space ahead of Marco Werner in the No.1 Audi, but he is due another pit stop shortly which will close the pair back up.

The No.17 Pescarolo still holds sixth place, although Pedro Lamy is easily the quickest car on the circuit at the moment and is taking more than 10 seconds per lap out of Harold Primat, as he aims to return the No.8 Peugeot to the top six following their battery problem in the previous hour.

Soheil Ayari is also closing on Primat in the No.5 Courage Oreca in the battle for the petrol-powered honours.

The Van Merksteijn Porsche RS Spyder has maintained its one lap advantage over the Team Essex car in LMP2, while David Brabham has pulled out more than 30 seconds over Jan Magnussen as Aston Martin continue to lead Corvette in GT1.

Gianmaria Bruni is still at the wheel of the Risi Competizione Ferrari with a dominant GT2 lead over the Virgo Motorsport car. The Farnbacher Ferrari dropped from third to fifth in class with a lengthy pit stop.

The Kruse Schiller Motorsport Lola Mazda stopped out on circuit in a cloud of smoke shortly after 2am. Jean de Pourtales is attempting to get the car back to the pits, but the problem looks terminal.