Le Mans hour 6: #8 Toyota edges away in lead battle

Having passed Jose Maria Lopez towards the end of the previous hour, Alonso allowed the Argentinian to come back at him before stabilising a gap of around 1.5 seconds and then pitting to hand over to Nakajima.

In the hands of Nakajima - who secured pole for the race - the #8 eased clear of Lopez and ended the hour with an advantage of 10 seconds back to the #7, which Lopez handed over to Kamui Kobayashi late on.

Matevos Isaakyan has taken over the third-placed #17 SMP Racing BR1 from Egor Orudzhev and has an advantage of more than 80 seconds over the leading #3 Rebellion.

The #1 Rebellion-Gibson R-13 now has Neel Jani at the wheel but is three laps down, and one behind its sister car, after it was briefly wheeled into the garage in the previous hour.

Renger van der Zande had run sixth in the #10 DragonSpeed BR1 but, after going straight on at the Dunlop chicane midway through the hour, spent the majority of the final 15 minutes of the hour in the pits as DragonSpeed mechanics removed the engine cover to inspect the car's suspension.

Jenson Button has now completed 28 laps in the #11 SMP BR1 but remains last in the order.

G-Drive's LMP2 lead grows

The #26 G-Drive Racing ORECA which has led the race since the first hour continues at the head of the field at one quarter distance, with Roman Rusinov at the wheel.

The Russian has extended his margin over the #36 Signatech-Alpine of Pierre Thiriet to a little over two minutes after Thiriet spun exiting a slow zone at Arnage on the hour-mark.

Rusinov had around 90 seconds in hand over Thiriet prior to the slow zone, which was caused when Juan-Pablo Montoya nosed the #32 United Autosports Ligier into the barriers at Indianapolis, costing him one lap and dropping him from eighth to 12th.

Thiriet then pitted shortly after the hour mark to hand the car back to Nicolas Lapierre.

Timothe Buret held third at the hour mark in the #23 Panis-Barthez Competition Ligier, ahead of Paul-Loup Chatin's IDEC Sport ORECA - the first of the cars to make its ninth pitstop - and the #28 TDS Racing ORECA of Matthieu Vaxiviere, who owes a pitstop.

Tristan Gommendy's Graff-So24 ORECA, which is on an identical pitstop sequence to Chatin - and Come Ledogar's #34 Jackie Chan DC Racing Ligier are the first cars one lap down in sixth and seventh positions.

Montoya's incident promoted the sister #22 United Autosports Ligier into the top 10 in the hands of Paul di Resta, although the Scot remains the first car two laps down after the car lost seven minutes early on fixing the GPS tracker.

Leading Porsche building GTE Pro lead

The #92 Porsche continued to lead the GTE Pro class by almost two minutes.

Michael Christensen took over the car from Kevin Estre in the sixth hour, the 'Pink Pig'-liveried machine maintaining the lead despite pitting a lap earlier than several class rivals, and it was as far as three minutes ahead owing the Montoya-induced slow zone.

Ex-DTM racer Martin Tomczyk ran second at the six-hour mark in the #82 BMW, taking over from Nick Catsburg, but he was under serious pressure from Patrick Pilet in the #93 Porsche.

Gianmaria Bruni was fourth in the #91 Porsche, which lost time during an earlier safety car phase. ahead of Dirk Muller's #68 Ford and Antonio Felix da Costa in the second of the MTEK-run BMWs.

The #71 Ferrari lost yet more time as it wheeled into the garage after its three-minute stop-and-go, and currently runs four laps down.

In GTE Am, the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche, now in the hands of team owner Christian Ried holds a commanding lead of more than three minutes over the Project 1 car, which gained ground with Jorg Bergmeister at the wheel.

The JMW Ferrari that had been second has dropped to fifth behind the old-spec factory Aston Martin Vantage and the Spirit of Race Ferrari.

Positions after six hours