Once again, the fourteenth hour of the race has securely fallen into a ‘sleepy’ period of the race where drivers are driving carefully so as to not make any mistakes due to tiredness. Andre Lotterer is still leading the race competitively with 219 laps on the board. Only one major incident happened out on track with yellow flags coming out for the #92 Porsche GT Team that spun at Ford Chicane.
LMP1
1st – #1 Porsche Team – 919 Hybrid – Tandy/Lotterer/Jani
2nd (p14) – #2 Porsche Team – 919 Hybrid – Bernhard/Hartley/Bamber
3rd (p30) – #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing – TS050 – Nakajima/Davidson/Buemi
With the LMP1 field so spread out through the timing board, there is little change in the class order. It was another incident-free hour for the Hybrid cars. Brendon Hartley, still in the #2 Porsche, is making good progress through the LMP2 field. However, the slow zones are halting it’s progress and the less chance the #2 Porsche has of going as fast as it can or less chance of being able to overtake the less likely it will be that it can get up to the top of the timesheet.
LMP2
1st – #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing – ORECA 07-Gibson – Jarvis/Tung/Laurent
2nd – #13 Vaillante Rebellion – ORECA 07-Gibson – Piquet Jr/Beche/Heinemeier Hansson
3rd – #31 Vaillante Rebellion – ORECA 07-Gibson – Senna/Prost/Canal
A couple of teams in LMP2 had issues in this hour. The #27 SMP Racing had a momentary loss of power at the top of the hour but it worked through that fairly quickly. It is very far out of contetion, sitting P47 overall behind all of the Am cars.
Oliver Jarvis managed to get the jump on the Vaillante Rebellions and take the lead of the LMP2 class. This also means he took second place in the overall classification. However, the team is under investigation in their pit stop so the #38’s day could still get more complicated.
LMGTE PRO
1st – #95 Aston Martin Racing – Aston Martin Vantage – Thiim/Sorensen/Stanaway
2nd – #97 Aston Martin Racing – Aston Martin Vantage – Adam/Turner/Serra
3rd – #71 AF Corse – Ferrari 488 GTE – Bird/Rigon/Molina
The #92 Porsche GT Team brought out the only incident flags for the hour. Spinning at Ford Chicane, Michael Christensen clipped the tyre barrier and ended beached in the gravel. The car was pulled free and placed behind the barrier to try and get the car moving again. Christensen is still with the car but the likelihood of it being driven back to pits is low.
There was a wheel-to-wheel battle for second place as the hour came to an end with Darren Turner and Alessandro Pier Guidi through the Ford Chicane. The two came close to contact but Turner defneded the position by using the LMP2 traffic around them to back Guidi into a blue flag situation.
LMGTE AM
1st – #84 JMW Motorsport – Ferrari 488 GTE – Stevens/Smith/Vanthoor
2nd – #55 Spirit of Race – Ferrari 488 GTE – Cameron/Cioci/Scott
3rd – #62 Scuderia Corsa – Ferrari 488 GTE – Bell/Sweedler/MaCNeil
Ferrari running teams dominated this hour as Aston Martin fell into some difficulties. the #90 TF Sport taht had been running very strong and competitively stopped out on track at the Michelin Chicane and dropped down to fifth in class before it managed to get moving again. The #99 Beechdean AMR lost a little bit of time as the team pitted for a sceduled brake disc and pad change. However, it was a super fast change from the Aston Martin team as it took them about 40 seconds to get the whole change completed and the car back out on track.
