Kazuki Nakajima in the #5 Toyota GAZOO Racing TS050 leads the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The Hour remained fairly quiet as all the teams geared up for the final stint. Hour 23 was most noted for the slow zone caused by Ines Tattinger in the #28 Pegasus Racing who retired with an engine fire.
LMP1
The hour started with the #5 Toyota GAZOO Racing machine leading by 30 seconds. With two hours to go at that point, they simply needed to avoid trouble to hold off the challenge from the German outfit behind.
As for the other Porsche, the #1 was pushed back into the garage after working its way back up to fifteenth. A bad end of the day to Webber.
LMP2
As the hour got underway, Victor Shaytar finally finished his marathon sprint letting Vitaly Petrov take over the #37 SMP Racing car. Meanwhile, the P2 leader; #36 Signatech Alpine had Nicolas Lapierre took over the car as the safest pair of hands after an incredible stint from his co-drivers to stretch the advantage.
As he did so, Romain Rusinov in the second place G-Drive car unlapped himself. Though a 3 and a half-minute gap seemed hard to eradicate.
#28 Pegasus Racing was given a drive through penalty before spinning off into the gravel at the end of the Mulsanne Straight. Ines Tattinger was eventually recovered, but the damage had been done many hours before.
She limped back to the pits with a puncture, wrecking the bodywork. This eventually damaged the engine, pulling off with an engine fire. This caused yet another slow zone.
The Hour ended with Ben Keating in the #48 Murphy Prototype stuck in the gravel.
GT Pro
The #82 Risi Competizione appeared to be dropping away slightly as Giancarlo Fisichella couldn’t keep up with the #68 Pro leader as the hour begun.
It had been an impressive run from the #68 Chip Ganassi Outfit who’d made two more pit stops than their rivals, proving the speed that they had over the competition.
GT Am
The category remained fairly quiet with only the battle for second gaining any attention. The #88 Abu Dhabi-Proton finally got second place back after the #83 AF Corse was forced to pit. They remained in front by 35 seconds as Emmanuel Collard attacked.
The #62 Scuderia Corse continued to lead the GT-Am class with Jeff Segal at the wheel.
