As daylight grew over the Circuit de la Sarthe, Ryo Hirakawa was 12 seconds ahead of Alessandro Pier Guidi with nine hours to go, the gap between them fluctuating in the heat of the moment.
In the 13th hour, Brendon Hartley put in a phenomenal stint in the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID, extending his lead by 17 seconds over Antonio Giovinazzi’s #51 Ferrari, who had been leading at half-time.
Giovinazzi then retaliated, working his way up to within 3.5 seconds of the Toyota, but a late pit stop, during which he handed off to Pier Guidi, was compounded by a time loss in a slow zone while the D’station Aston Martin was off Tomonobu Fujii was recovered.
The lead fell to over 40 seconds, which Pier Guidi extended to catch up with Hirakawa, who got new tires replacing Hartley.
The No. 2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R is in the hands of Earl Bamber in third place, over 2:30 behind, while the premier Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, Laurens Vanthoor, is at the wheel of the No. 6 -Cars is one lap behind in fourth place. The second CGR-Cadillac, number 3 by Renger van der Zande, is fifth ahead of the first Peugeot 9X8, number 93 by Jean-Eric Vergne.
The Glickenhauses finished seventh and eighth, ahead of the late No. 5 Porsche, No. 50 Ferrari and No. 94 Peugeot.
In the LMP2 class, number 47 Cool Racing leader Reshad de Gerus suffered a violent crash in the Porsche corners that smashed the left side of the car, but somehow managed to get it back into the pits pull. Another serious accident interrupted the race a few hours later when Ben Barnicoat overtook the #80 AF Corse car on the same section of the track.
#34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07 – Gibson by Jakub Smiechowski, Albert Costa, Fabio Scherer
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
The No. 34 from Inter Europol Competition by Fabio Scherer – who continues despite a foot injury – took over the class lead from Robert Kubica from Team WRT in the 14th hour. The #41 was also awarded 10 points for causing a collision with the #3 caddy.
Team No. 30 Duqueine remains in the hunt, as do Competitors No. 48 IDEC and No. 65 Panis Racing, but with nine hours remaining all class wins are up for grabs.
In the GTE-Am class, Jonas Ried’s Proton Porsche #88 had a serious accident in Indianapolis, causing damage to the crash barrier and a longer deceleration zone.
Takeshi Kimura leads the class in the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 and battles with the #85 Iron Dames Porsche 911, the #25 ORT by TF Aston Martin and the #54 AF Corse Ferrari.
The Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 is 28th overall in the hands of Jenson Button while racing with the GTE Am front-runners.