Le Mans 24 Hours: Porsche's Brendon Hartley keeps Audis at bay

The Kiwi, whose car inherited the lead when Andre Lotterer suffered a puncture in the #7 Audi in hour three, resisted an on-track challenge from the #9 Audi of Filipe Albuquerque, who was out of sequence with the race leader.

While Albuquerque's stunning set of laps helped him onto the tail of the leader before his first stop in the hour, in the same sequence later on Hartley was able to manage the gap far more comfortably.

Hartley also had the #7 of Benoit Treluyer to contend with, which gradually chipped away at the leader, getting the gap down to around 44-45 seconds.

Even the third #8 Audi, which lost a lap following Loic Duval's crash in hour three, gave Hartley a headache at one stage, as Lucas di Grassi fought with the leader on track to briefly rejoin the lead lap before pitting.

The other two Porsches have gradually slipped out of contention, with the #19 suffering after pitting under the safety car in the previous hour, and the #18 making an early stop and Marc Lieb handing over to Romain Dumas.

LMP2

KCMG maintained a strong lead in LMP2 with Nicolas Lapierre behind the wheel.

Running out of sequence compared to his challengers, Lapierre led by 40s after pitting for a fifth time halfway through the hour, and when TDS Racing made its sixth stop late in the piece, KCMG held a two-minute advantage.

Its closest challenger is now the Greaves Motorsport entry, despite an off for Gary Hirsch at the first Mulsanne chicane.

OAK Racing started the hour second with Kevin Estre, but a slow pitstop to check floor damage meant it dropped to eighth, with Christopher Cumming behind the wheel.

TDS is third, having been leapfrogged by Greaves during the pitstops, with Pierre Thieriet now aboard the ORECA.

The Karun Chandhok-driven Murphy Prototypes entry is fourth, ahead of Nelson Panciatici in the Signatech Alpine.

GTE

Chevrolet's Corvette C7.R continues to lead GTE, but Aston Martin was starting to apply pressure at the close of the fifth hour.

Tommy Milner had edged clear of the #99 and #97 Vantages in the first half of the hour but his lead started to shrink in the closing stages.

Fernando Rees runs second in the #99, with Darren Turner unable to make progress beyond moving back into third following his spin in the fourth hour.

The return to third for the #97 was aided by issues for the AF Corse Ferraris.

The #71 dropped out of sequence almost with a surprisingly early stop, and Olivier Beretta then struggled with a series of four-minute laps early in his stint.

That car, which the Italian shares with James Calado and Davide Rigon, is faring better than the sister #51, which lost almost a lap when Giancarlo Fisichella made a planned pitstop but spent four minutes in the pitlane.

In GTE Am the customer SMP Ferrari is showing strongly, with Victor Shaitar leading comfortably ahead of the #98 Aston Martin and #53 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper SRT GT3-RSR.

POSITIONS AFTER FIVE HOURS