Le Mans latest (4)

Kelleners took over from Alan McNish, who said of his battle with Jorg Muller, 'I had to push quite a bit.

'There's a long way to go, but the car's good. It's going to be a hard fight.'

When race leader Muller pitted, JJ Lehto got in the car and rejoined just behind new leader Kellener.

There has been an exciting battle between them since.

Meanwhile, the no 1 Toyota has been taken over by Vincenzo Sospiri, who is in the race for the first time. He has only done four laps of the circuit since Wednesday, but by 1930CET he was in fourth place.

The Audi no7 of Laurent Aiello came in on lap 50 to have the gearbox changed, as Aiello lost second gear, then discovered he could only use fourth.

Another unscheduled stop was that of Jan Magnussen in the no11 Panoz, who has a slow puncture which began to affect the steering.

Bouchut set the fastest time for the no5 Mercedes at 3:37.789.

Leading positions at 1930:

Kelleners Toyota

Lehto BMW

Bouchut Mercedes

Sospiri Toyota

Schneider Mercedes

Dalmsa BMW

1900CET Toyota's Allan McNish has taken a well-deserved lead after nearly three hours of Le Mans.

He overtook BMW's Jorg Muller at 18.50 CET after a two-lap tussle in which, at one point, his GT-One had two wheels on the grass.

He had strecthed his lead to more than five seconds two laps later.

Meanwhile, the Panoz of Eric Bernard slashed a five-second advantage to close to within a second of sixth-placed BMW driver Peirluigi Martini.

The Toyota number one car of Emmanuel Collard struggled to maintain McNish's pace and was nearly 50 seconds behind the leader by lap 48.

BMW team manager Charly Lamm, whose cars lie second and sixth said, 'We immediately found a very good rhythm with the BMW number 17 car. Tom (Kristensen) drove an excellent first turn and I am proud of our pit-crew.'

The rain, which threatened the race, has since stopped.

The top six drivers after three hours:

McNish (Toyota)

Muller (BMW)

Collard (Toyota)

Heidfeld (Mercedes)

Lamy (Mercedes)

Martini (BMW)