The #7 Toyota continues its so far untroubled run in the lead of the 82nd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
With the race entering its second day, the gap at the front between the #7 Toyota and #1 Audi continues to fluctuate. The Toyota, still driven by Alexander Wurz, has a lead of over two minutes, but by the end of the hour the #1 Audi with Andre Lotterer on-board and fresh tyres on the car has begun to close the gap.
The #1 Audi continues to hold third place overall, ahead of the two Porsches, the best of which is now two laps down. The biggest mover in LMP1 in the last hour was the delayed #8 Toyota. Following its most recent delay in its pit garage, the car climbed back into the top ten and is classified in seventh, the last of the LMP1 machines still in the race.
Mark Webber completed his first stint back at Le Mans, and handed driving duties back to Timo Bernhard at a routine pit stop.
In LMP2, the #35 car continues to hold an impressive margin over the rest of the class, with Alex Brundle and Jann Mardenborough sharing the driving duties through the night. It hasn’t been such plain sailing for their team mates, however. The #26 G-Drive Racing entered OAK Morgan was reported stopped on the circuit following contact with a Ferrari GTE car, while the #33 also continues to have a troubled run.
The battles in the GTE classes continue to rage on, but attrition is starting to show here.
There has been good and bad news for the Aston Martin squad. The British marque leads both the Pro and Am classes with the #97 and #95 cars respectively. Stefan Mucke, however, was due to hand driving duties over to Bruno Senna in the #97 as the hour drew to a close.
Meanwhile, the earlier class leading Am #98 encountered problems, pitting with smoke billowing from the front of the car. It is reported that the car has suffered a power steering failure, but it is expected to re-join the race.
Porsche is also having a mixed fortunes in Pro. The #92 car continues to be in contention for class honours, but the same can’t be said for the #91. After a twenty minute delay in the garage, the car re-joined the race at the start of the hour, but would return to the pits after just a few laps.
2014 24 Hours of Le Mans class standings after 10 hours
LMP1
1 – #7 Toyota Racing – Wurz/Sarrazin/Nakajima
2 – #2 Audi Sport Team Joest – Fassler/Lotterer/Treluyer
3 – #1 Audi Sport Team Joest – di Grassi/Gene/Kristensen
LMP2
1 – #35 Oak Racing – Brundle/Mardenborough/Shulzhitskiy
2 – #36 Signatech Alpine– Panciatici/Webb/Chatin
3 – #34 Race Performance – Frey/Mailleux/Lancaster
LMGTE Pro
1 – #97 Aston Martin Racing – Turner/Mücke/Senna
2 – #51 AF Corse – Bruni/Vilander/Fisichella
3 – #74 Corvette Racing – Gavin/Milner/Westbrook
LMGTE Am
1 – #95 Aston Martin Racing – Poulson/Heinemeier Hansson/Thiim
2 – #72 SMP Racing – Bertolini/Shaitar/Basov
3 – #88 Proton Competition – Al Qubaisi/Bachler/Ried
