Audi continue to lead the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans as daylight breaks, ahead of the two Toyota’s, LMP2 remains the same with OAK leading 1-2 and Jota waiting to pick up the pieces.
The hour started badly for the Rebellion team as the #12 spun at the Mulsanne chicane, Neel Jani would recover the car back to the pitlane for work to be carried out in the garage. Another team that had a bad start to the hour was the Strakka car which spun in to the gravel entering the pits, unfortunately for Jonny Kane he would have to wait to be recovered.
Andre Lotterer pushed hard to recover from the issues that struck earlier in the race and began closing in on the Strakka car which was in 7th place. Unfortunately Lotterer and the team would lose out during the pitstop as they looked to fix a brakepedal issue. Despite losing time in the pitstop the #1 car is back on the pace now and closing in on the Strakka car at a pace of 10 seconds per lap.
LMP2 remains in control of OAK Racing as they lead the class with a solid 1-2, third placed Jota Sport have lost time after Lucas Luhr had an off-track excursion, since the incident the car has been back at the pits and has dropped to 7th place. Moving in to the third spot is the Greaves Motorsport car.
Chaos was cause by Brandela as he cut up the fifth placed #88 Porsche at the Dunlop curves and took out a Ferrari, he would head back to the pits for a check over before being sent on this way. There would be another near miss on his outlap as he almost crashed in to one of the Toyota’s as it came around to lap him.
The GTE Pro class has a new leader in the shape of the #92 Porsche while Bruno Senna in the #99 and Stefan Mucke in the #97 try to mop things up in second and third. Mucke had a lucky escape after the straightlined the first chicane at Mulsanne.
In the GTE Am class the #76 IMSA Porsche leads the field followed by the two AF Corse Ferrari’s. The #88 Porsche drops down to ninth place with a 17 minute stop following the earlier collision caused by the #39 LMP2 car.
2013 24 Hours of Le Mans class standings after 15 hours
LMP1
1 – #2 Audi Sport Team Joest – Kristensen/Duval/McNish
2 – #8 Toyota Racing – Davidson/Buemi/Sarrazin
3 – #7 Toyota Racing – Wurz/Lapierre/Nakajima
LMP2
1 – #35 OAK Racing – Baguette/Gonzalez/Plowman
2 – #24 OAK Racing – Pla/Heinemeier Hansson/Brundle
3 – #42 Greaves Motorsport – Mardenborough/Ordonez/Krumm
GTE Pro
1 – #92 Porsche AG Team Manthey – Lieb/Lietz/Dumas
2 – #99 Aston Martin Racing – Bell/Makowiecki/Senna
3 – #97 Aston Martin Racing – Dumbreck/Mucke/Turner
GTE Am
1 – #76 IMSA Performance Matmut – Narac/Bourret/Vernay
2 – #55 AF Corse – Perazzini/Case/O’Young
3 – #61 AF Corse – Griffin/Gerber/Cioci