Hour 1: Herbert leads the Audi charge

Herbert held off a strong challenge from Biela into the first corner, but their tailgunner Michael Krumm picked up a left-front puncture on the warm-up lap that forced him to pit. He rejoined last and stormed his way through the field to ninth after 60 minutes.

Herbert pitted surprisingly early on lap 10, suggesting that the Joest-run cars didn't start on full tanks. Biela stopped a lap later, and although his visit was 1sec longer, he rejoined just ahead of Herbert. But the former F1 ace retook the lead on lap 13, so he held the lead at the end of the opening hour.

As expected, the works Audis are well clear of the opposition, which is led by the Team Goh R8 of Hiroki Katoh. The Japanese squad has been on the back foot since lead driver Yannick Dalmas had a big crash in qualifying, but Katoh made an excellent job of rising from 15th on the grid.

Andy Wallace also drove a stunning opening stint in the sole Bentley to hold fourth after starting 11th, while the leading Cadillac of Emmanuel Collard held fifth, ahead of the impressive MG of Mark Blundell. He spent much of the opening hour embarrassing the larger prototypes in the early going, and ran as high as third before his pit stop.

Jan Lammers had run third early on in his Judd-powered Dome, but the car has slipped back to seventh after Val Hillebrand took over on lap 10.

The unwanted accolade of the first problem of the race was encountered by the GT class Spyker, the BMW engine of which refused to run for more than a few seconds at a time. The ORECA-run Chrysler Viper of Jean-Philippe Belloc then dived into the pits at the end of the formation lap with a misfire. Both were fixed and started the race from the pit lane.

The first retirement of the event, however, was the Autoexe Motorsports WR-Mazda of Yojiro Terada, which pulled off just after the Mulsanne corner with differential failure.

Stay tuned to Autosport.com for further hourly updates, but we will also report any major incidents as they happen.

Capello/Herbert/Pescatori Audi Sport Team Joest, Audi R8 16 laps
Kristensen/Biela/Pirro Audi Sport Team Joest, Audi R8 +3.413s
Ara/Dalmas/Katoh Team Goh, Audi R8 15 laps
Wallace/Leitzinger/van de Poele Team Bentley, Bentley Speed 8 15 laps *
Bernard/Collard/Lehto Team Cadillac, Cadillac LMP02 15 laps
Blundell/Bailey/McGarrity MG Sport, MG-Lola EX257 15 laps **
Lammers/Hillebrand/Coronel Racing for Holland, Dome-Judd S101 15 laps
Goossens/Matthews/Theys Riley & Scott-Elan Mk3C 15 laps
Beretta/Lamy/Comas Team ORECA, Dallara-Judd LMP 15 laps
Reid/Hughes/Kane MG Sport, MG-Lola EX257 15 laps **