Le Mans 24 Hours: Toyota takes control in seventh hour

For several hours, the #6 Toyota, which is running 14-lap stints, and the #1 Porsche, which is doing 13-lap runs, had been trading the lead at pitstops thanks to becoming increasingly out-of-synch.

But when Kamui Kobayashi brought the car in for its seventh stop from the lead it coincided with a slow zone created when the #28 Pegasus Morgan of Ines Taittinger went off.

Kobayashi was able to pit, refuel and hand over to Sarrazin, who re-emerged still in first place rather than dropping to second.

At the seven-hour mark, his lead over Bernhard was 77 seconds, but with a pitstop imminent.

It was a difficult hour for the #1 Porsche, with stewards also announcing an investigation into the car's lap-76 pitstop and Bernhard then locking up and narrowly avoiding the wall when he was caught out by a slow zone at the Porsche Curves.

The #5 Toyota, which Kazuki Nakajima took over during the seventh hour, runs third ahead of Neel Jani in the #2 Porsche and the #8 Audi of Lucas Di Grassi.

The top five are all on the lead lap, with Di Grassi still only just over two-and-a-half minutes down.

The #7 Audi, currently driven by Andre Lotterer, lies seventh but is six laps down after having to fit a replacement turbocharger early on.

LMP2 - SIGNATECH CLOSES ON TDS, MANOR IN STRIFE
By Mitchell Adam

Thiriet by TDS Racing remains at the top of LMP2 in eighth outright, but the Signatech Alpine has made significant inroads into its lead.

TDS started the hour in a commanding position with Ryo Hirakawa essentially a pitstop ahead, but he lost nearly 30 seconds to Stephane Richelmi through a slow zone, and then pitted to hand the ORECA over to Pierre Thiriet.

Thiriet was running 37s behind Richelmi before the Signatech driver pitted, and while he regained the lead the advantage is now a reduced 15s.

Having led the race for several hours, Manor's bid for LMP2 victory on its Le Mans debut looks over.

Matt Rao was running in the top five when he suffered a slow, front-right puncture, having collected a bollard.

Manor has since been unable to restart the ORECA, and it has fallen to 18th in the class order, eight laps down and still in pitlane at the end of the hour.

KCMG is third, with Tsugio Matsuda in the car for the first time in the race, 30 seconds ahead of Roman Rusinov in the G-Drive ORECA.

The sister G-Drive entry, with Simon Dolan aboard the Gibson is fifth, ahead of Nick Leventis in Strakka's Gibson.

FORD IN CHARGE IN GTE BATTLE
By Scott Mitchell and Jack Cozens

Ford moved back into a one-two position ahead of Risi Competizione in the fight for GTE honours.

IndyCar aces Sebastien Bourdais and Scott Dixon are first and second for the #68 and #69 Ganassi-run GTs respectively, 10 seconds clear of the chasing Ferrari 488 GTE.

Bourdais and Dixon ran behind the Risi entry in the early part of the hour but made it past Matteo Malucelli before easing clear.

The Ferrari lost 27 seconds in the pits by swapping Malucelli for Giancarlo Fisichella, but a large chunk of that time loss was negated by a fortunately-timed slow zone.

Bourdais still leads with a six-second advantage over Dixon, but Fisichella closed to within 10 seconds of the second Ford and was running at a faster pace thanks to new rubber.

The #66 Ford of Billy Johnson has fallen from 10 seconds behind Bourdais at the start of the stint to half a minute in arrears after twice falling victim to unfortunate slow-zone timings.

Khaled Al Qubaisi continues to lead the GTE Am category in the #88 Abu Dhabi-Proton entry, but the Porsche stranglehold on the top two positions was ended in the seventh hour thanks to a remarkable charge from Pedro Lamy.

In for his second stint of the day in the #98 Aston Martin, Lamy chased down a deficit of more than a minute and a half in less than 10 laps to the #78 KCMG Porsche 911 - taking 28s on one lap - and passed Christian Ried in the second half of the hour to snatch second.

Lamy is now 40s behind the leading Porsche, with Jeff Segal up to third in the #62 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari after Ried pitted.

POSITIONS AFTER SEVEN HOURS