H21: #1 Peugeot pressuring Audis

As Mike Rockenfeller took over from Romain Dumas in the leading #9 Audi, the German marque's secure 1-2 was thrown in to question when Lotterer skated gently, brakes locked, into the tyres at Arnage Corner just after halfway through the hour.

Lotterer was forced to pit for a new nose section allowing Wurz to catch, and eventually, pass the #8 machine a lap after it rejoined, on the Mulsanne straight.

Wurz's second position was short-lived though as he was forced to pit for more diesel himself a lap later, but now he is less than 50s behind Lotterer.

The lead car's hour was less eventful, but with three hours still to go the pace of the #1 Peugeot is still enough to cause more upset before the race is over.

Tom Kristensen in the fourth-placed Audi was warned for running outside the white lines as the Dane pressed on hard in the recovering #7 car. The eight-time winner is driving absolutely flat out and indeed recorded the R15's best lap of the race - a 3m21.965s. He remains three laps off the lead however.

Nicolas Lapierre hasn't given up for ORECA either - the privately-entered Peugeot is less than two minutes behind the #7 Audi.

Darren Turner's sixth position became a little bit more secure in the early part of the hour when Christian Bakkerud went off at Indianapolis and pitted shortly afterwards. The Kolles Audi was two laps behind the petrol 'class'-leading Aston Martin when it stopped again on-track at Indianapolis just at the turn of the hour.

The next petrol-powered car is the ORECA-Aim in eighth, 10 laps behind Turner, in eighth position.

The LMP2-leading Strakka Acura survived a scare of its own as Nick Leventis suffered a right-rear puncture. Fortunately the gentleman driver was on his in-lap and though the team was forced to make some repairs to the bodywork, Danny Watts emerged from the pits with a five-lap advantage over the #35 Pescarolo of Guillaume Moreau.

Wolf Henzler's Felbermayr Porsche maintained a two lap lead in the GT2 class, with Leh Keen still pursuing in the Farnbacher Ferrari. In GT1, the Saleen edged ever closer to first Le Mans class win with Gabriele Gardel at the wheel.