Brendon Hartley leads the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Toyota with half the race gone and half still to go, with the race under safety car due to heavy rain.
Both Hartley and second placed Kevin Estre, in the #6 Porsche 963, have both pitted under safety car. Hartley briefly relinquished the lead to Estre but when Estre pitted he handed it back again to Hartley in the Toyota.
Estre has only recently climbed into the car and was only around 10 seconds behind Hartley before the safety car neutralised the race.
Hartley, who also got into the car recently, took over from teammate Sebastien Buemi. Buemi had been in the car for past few hours and had extended a small gap to the #6 Porsche behind.
Jose Maria Lopez is third in the sister #7 Toyota, almost a minute off the lead.
The race began with #50 Ferrari 499P’s Nicklas Nielsen taking the lead at the first lap from polesitter Vanthoor, at Porsche Curves. His teammate Antonio Giovinazzi in the sister #51 Ferrari soon found his way by too, to make it a Ferrari 1-2 early on at Le Mans.
They retained this for much of the first hour and a bit, with Porsche making a strategy mistake on the #6 and switching the car to intermediate tyres when it began to rain in the second hour. They split the strategy, however, with the sister #5 car not switching to wets and staying on slicks.
Nielsen, who also stayed on slicks, subsequently engaged in a battle with the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kubica, with Kubica eventually taking the lead and extending a gap. Nielsen later got a penalty for an unsafe release at his first pitstop, dropping him back into the pack while Kubica solidified his lead.
The #83 led for the next five or so hours. However, into hour 8 and, while attempting to lap the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor, Kubica inadvertently made contact with the BMW, sending D. Vanthoor spearing off into the barriers and, subsequently, out of the race.
This led to a lengthy safety car period of one and a half hours while the barriers near Mulsanne Corner was repaired. When the safety car came in Kubica was leading, but pitted immediately for wets as it had begun raining all around the track.
He then received a 30 second stop/go for his responsibility in the incident with the BMW, which dropped the car around a minute into the pack.
Meanwhile, Fred Makowiecki in the #5 Porsche had not pitted for wets, rolling the dice and gambling it wouldn’t rain for long, or hard enough, to not need wet tyres.
This was the wrong decision and Makowiecki, leading after most of the Hypercar field came into the pits, dropped through the field as the Frenchman struggled on slicks.
This promoted Ryo Hirakawa, who had replaced Buemi in the #8 Toyota, to the lead. He has since been replaced behind the wheel by Hartley.
The car remained in the lead until the safety car came out, with a small, fluctuating gap to the #6 Porsche. Estre, at the wheel, has recently replaced Andre Lotterer, who is hunting for his fourth Le Mans win.
So, with Hartley leading — behind the safety car— and Estre in second, Lopez is third in the sister #7 Toyota. Miguel Molina is #50 Ferrari 499P, with the race having swung away from Ferrari after the Italian manufacturer led early on.
The #2 Cadillac V-Series.R of Alex Palou is fifth, a further 20 seconds off Molina, and just over two minutes off the lead in total. The #51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi is sixth and Yifei Ye in the former leader, the #83 AF Corse Ferrari, is seventh. The last car on the lead lap is the #38 JOTA Porsche 963 of Oliver Rasmussen, 3:13 off the lead.
Nico Varrone holds the LMP2 lead and has done for the past few hours, in the #183 AF Corse Oreca 07-Gibson. The #10 Vector Sport Oreca 07-Gibson led the race for quite a few hours in the first half, but currently sits fifth in class under safety car, with Ryan Cullen at the wheel.
With Varrone leading, Lorenzo Fluxa is second in the #37 COOL Racing Oreca 07-Gibson. Third is the #34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07-Gibson of Clement Novalak.
Aliksander Malykhin is leading the LMGT3 class in the #92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche 911 GT3R. In fact it’s a Manthey 1-2, with Yasser Shahin in the sister #91 Manthey EMA is second. Third in class is the #59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3, with Nicolas Costa currently at the wheel.
“What an experience to do my first stints in the 24 Hours of Le Mans,” said Costa after his first ever stint at Le Mans earlier on.
“It was so much fun – I enjoyed every lap of it. In the end, I think we stopped P5 so it’s really positive. I think we are on the right path. We are one of the fastest cars on track. We are in the fight if we can stay out of trouble out there.”
