Le Mans 24 Hours: Buemi holds narrow lead after SMP-induced safety car

Buemi started the hour more than a minute behind the sister #7 TS050 HYBRID of Mike Conway, a result of being caught behind a different safety car during a previous neutralised period, but served his stop shortly before Egor Orudzhev crashed from third place.

SMP driver Orudzhev went off at the Porsche Curves 20 minutes into the hour, with his #17 BR Engineering-AER BR1 taking some time for the recovery crew to extract.

But while Buemi had stopped under green-flag conditions, Conway - who had not previously been headed during his time in the cockpit - was held at the end of the pitlane until the safety-car train had passed, which meant he dropped behind his team-mate.

The Briton was within a second and a half of Buemi on the restart and got closer to the #8 in the laps immediately afterwards, but could not find a way past before the top of the hour.

Orudzhev's crash, after which the Russian threw a part of the car aside in anger, promoted the #3 Rebellion into the final podium position.

Gustavo Menezes had been making small inroads into Orudzhev's advantage before the SMP's crash, and used the safety car to end a strong stint in the lead Rebellion R-13.

Nathanael Berthon took over from Menezes, and had a margin of more than two minutes over the fifth-place car of Stoffel Vandoorne (#11 SMP BR1).

The ByKolles ENSO CLM-Gibson P1/01 is still circulating in 56th overall, but the #10 DragonSpeed car stopped shortly after returning to the track at the end of the previous hour.

LMP2 - G-Drive establish huge lead after safety car

G-Drive Racing continues to lead the LMP2 pack, with Roman Rusinov managing an increasingly comfortable two-minute gap back to Signatech Alpine's Pierre Thiriet.

In his second spell behind the wheel, Job Van Uitert began to stamp his authority over the race in the #26 - now sixth overall - even as the safety car contrived to heighten his advantage.

Thiriet had no answer for Van Uitert's pace in the green flag running and was powerless to stem the tide as the G-Drive man built his lead to over two minutes, despite running tyres one stint older, prior to his handover to Rusinov shortly before the hour mark.

Only four cars now remain on the lead lap, with third-placed Gabriel Aubry in the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA pursued by Pastor Maldonado's #31 DragonSpeed ORECA.

Maldonado was 7s in arrears before the safety car and was 13s behind at the hour mark, having been held at the end of the pitlane when he came in under the safety car.

The second DC Racing entry of David Heinemeier-Hansson is fifth, ahead of Loic Duval's #28 TDS Racing ORECA.

GTE - #92 Porsche retakes lead from Ferrari, #85 Ford leads Ams

The #92 Porsche and AF Corse's #51 Ferrari remain in a private battle for the lead of the GTE Pro class.

A safety car in the previous hour broke up what had been a multi-car battle for the lead, and a further intervention in the 11th hour kept the two leaders away from the chasing pack.

The Porsche is now at the head of that order in Laurens Vanthoor's hands, and finished the hour eight seconds clear of Daniel Serra.

Earl Bamber is third in the #93 Porsche, ahead of the #63 Corvette and the lead #67 Ford GT.

The safety cars also affected the field in the Am class, as the third to sixth-placed cars were lumped together behind a different safety car than the second-placed #77 Porsche of Julien Andlauer.

While Felipe Fraga continued to lead in the #85 Keating Motorsport Ford ahead of the #77 Porsche, Charlie Eastwood made up three positions at the restart to move past Cooper MacNeil's Weathertech Ferrari, Rodrigo Baptista in the JMW Ferrari and Patrick Lindsey's Project 1 Porsche to hold third at the hour mark.

Positions after 11 hours