Le Mans 24 Hours: Audi moves ahead in battle with Porsche

The Porsche, driven by Mark Webber, came under fire from the #7 Audi of Marcel Fassler, which closed to just 10 seconds behind before both cars stopped in quick succession.

A quicker stop for Webber enabled him to extend that gap to around 18s when the cars rejoined, assuming positions two and three as local time reached 10pm.

Their stops allowed the #9 Audi, which Filipe Albuquerque handed over to Rene Rast, to take the lead, having been more than half a minute adrift of their fight before the top two pitted.

Romain Dumas and Nico Hulkenberg kept the other two Porsches in contention, separated by just a few seconds on track to round out the top five.

LMP2

KCMG leads LMP2 by nearly two minutes, but ended the hour with a pitstop under investigation by stewards.

Matt Howson continued the car's impressive run, extending its advantage by 10s to 1m51s and putting a lap on the third-placed Signatech Alpine.

However it was announced that its pitstop during the hour was under investigation for an unspecified, possible breach.

TDS Racing remains second, with Pierre Thiriet behind the wheel, ahead of Signatech's Vincent Capillaire.

Sam Bird is back up to fourth in the #26 G-Drive OAK, while Nathanael Berthon is aboard the sixth-placed Murphy Prototypes entry again.

Jota Sport is now eighth in the class, albeit three laps down, while Greaves Motorsport has retired its Gibson, which ran in second before stopping at the Esses with a battery failure.

Driver Gary Hirsch and mechanics attempted to substitute one of the car's auxiliary batteries for the failed primary unit, but to no avail.

GTE

Corvette reclaimed the GTE Pro advantage in a see-sawing battle with Aston Martin.

Thanks to the need for the triple-stinting #99 and #97 Vantages to change drivers, after Tommy Milner had already made way for Jordan Taylor in the C7.R in the previous hour, the Chevrolet squad assumed a decent lead at the head of the pack.

Alex MacDowall was unable to maintain team-mate Fernando Rees's form in the #99 Aston, which meant he slipped back from Taylor and into the clutches of Rob Bell, in for Darren Turner in the #97.

Porsche holds a comfortable fourth place, though its pursuer is now the #51 Ferrari, which has made its way back onto the class lead lap.

It has taken the place of the sister #71 AF Corse 458 Italia, which spent five laps in the pits with an unknown mechanical problem.

Aston Martin's lead in the GTE Am class is now substantial for the #98 car.

The #72 SMP Ferrari, which was trading the class advantage with the Vantage, has now dropped back into a battle with the #83 sister AF Corse car.

POSITIONS AFTER SEVEN HOURS