The 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans has now reached the end of its first quarter, and the battle between Porsche Team and Audi Sport Team Joest for LMP1 lead has continued.
Six hours into the race, the field is led by the #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley, and is currently being piloted by the ex-Formula One driver.
The hour started with the #41 Greaves Motorsport Gibson 015S – Nissan stopping on the track from second place, with a flat battery, and by the end of the hour it was 15 laps down.
Challenging the #17 for the lead in this hour were two Audis, the #7 and #9. By the end, it was Benoît Tréluyer in the #7 and Filipe Albuquerque in the #9 that trailed Webber’s Porsche. The following three positions were filled by the remaining Porsches and Audi. Toyota are far off the pace, and are mixed in with the Rebellion Racing R-One – AERs.
Some LMP1 cars had damage and mechanical problems, which were the #1 Toyota with bodywork damage and a missing headlight cover, causing the team to lose 14 minutes in the pits, and the #4 ByKolles CLM which was yet again reported as smoking.
Credit: Porsche AG
KCMG have continued to defend their LMP2 lead, and Nicolas Lapierre finished his extremely long stint to hand over control of the #47 Oreca 05 – Nissan to Matt Howson. With Greaves Motorsport out of the picture for the time being, 2nd place was taken by Thiriet by TDS Racing in the #46 Oreca. Finally, Murphy Prototypes complete the Oreca domination of the LMP2 class with their #48 03R in third.
The tense battle for LM GTE Pro lead settled down, and is now led by the #99 Aston Martin Racing Vantage V8 with Fernando Rees at the wheel, ahead of Jordan Taylor‘s #64 Corvette and Darren Turner‘s #97 Aston Martin.
Finally, Mathias Lauda leads LM GTE Am with the #98 Aston Martin, ahead of the two Ferrari 458 Italias of SMP Racing and AF Corse, with the #72 and #83 cars being driven by Aleksey Basov and Rui Aguas respectively.
Top 3 positions after 6 hours of the 24 Hours of Le Mans:
LMP1
- #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid – Bernhard/Webber/Hartley
- #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro – Fässler/Lotterer/Tréluyer
- #9 Audi R18 e-tron quattro – Albuquerque/Bonanomi/Rast
LMP2
- #47 KCMG Oreca 05 – Nissan – Howson/Bradley/Lapierre
- #46 Thiriet by TDS Racing Oreca 05 – Nissan – Thiriet/Badey/Gommendy
- #48 Murphy Prototypes Oreca 03R – Nissan – Patterson/Chandhok/Berthon
LM GTE Pro
- #99 Aston Martin Racing Vantage V8 – Rees/MacDowall/Stanaway
- #64 Corvette Racing C7R – Gavin/Milner/Taylor
- #97 Aston Martin Racing Vantage V8 – Turner/Mücke/Bell
LM GTE Am
- #98 Aston Martin Racing V8 – Dalla Lana/Lauda/Lamy
- #72 SMP Racing Ferrari 458 Italia – Shaytar/Bertolini/Basov
- #83 AF Corse Ferrari – Aguas/Perrodo/Collard
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