Le Mans 24 Hours: Nakajima retains lead in #8 Toyota

Having inherited a one-lap lead as a result of the #7 car's turbo issues just past the halfway point, Brendon Hartley handed over the #8 car to Kazuki Nakajima towards the end of the 14th hour.

Nakajima then proceeded to gain another lap over the second-placed #1 Rebellion R-13, currently driven by Norman Nato, in the 16th hour.

The second Rebellion, the #3 car, was three laps off the pace with Le Mans rookie Louis Deletraz at the wheel, while the #7 Toyota was circulating six laps behind its sister car with Jose Maria Lopez posting some quick lap times.

In LMP2, the all-United Autosports battle for the lead continued to rage. The two ORECAs pitted together at the end of the 15th hour, with the #22 machine taking the advantage by virtue of not changing tyres, putting the two cars on diverging strategies.

Filipe Albuquerque brought in the #22 car to hand over to Phil Hanson midway through the 16th hour, and Job van Uitert in the sister #32 machine was closing fast when the car was hit with a suspected oil leak just shy of the 16-hour mark.

The Goodyear-shod JOTA Sport ORECA had been closing on the lead battle, at one point running only 15 seconds off the lead, but an unscheduled pitstop cost the #38 car around a minute.

Anthony Davidson ran just over a minute off the lead at the 16-hour mark, regaining second place after the problem for the #32 United car.

Matthieu Vaxiviere ran third in the similarly Goodyear-equipped Panis Racing ORECA, but being hunted down rapidly by Roman Rusinov in the G-Drive Racing ORECA, while James Allen was running fifth in the Graff ORECA.

There was more drama for the #29 Racing Team Nederland ORECA, as Nyck de Vries got tangled up with Toni Vilander's WeatherTech Racing Ferrari in an incident at Tertre Rouge - causing terminal damage to the latter car.

In GTE Pro, Aston Martin got the upper hand over Ferrari after Alex Lynn handed over the #97 Vantage GTE to Maxime Martin, who passed Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari.

Once Pier Guidi pitted to make way for Daniel Serra, Martin was leading by around 15s until he came in to hand over to Harry Tincknell just before the 16-hour mark.

That meant Serra led by 90s over Tincknell but due a stop, while the second works Aston of Marco Sorensen continued to run third, a lap down.

There was more drama for Porsche as the #91 car, which had been fourth in class, was pushed into the garage to fix an electrical problem, elevating the #71 Ferrari to fourth.

In GTE Am, a superb stint from Jonathan Adam in the #90 TF Sport Aston Martin had given that car a handsome lead, even before its nearest rival, the #98 Aston Martin, was struck by a suspension issue that forced the car being driven by Ross Gunn into the garage.

Charlie Eastwood, having taken over from Adam, ran nearly a lap ahead of Matt Campbell in the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche, while the #56 Project 1 Porsche of Larry ten Voorde was up to third in class ahead of the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Nicklas Nielsen.

Le Mans 24 Hours - positions after 16 hours