Le Mans 24 Hours - Hours 10-12 We'll be grouping the night-time hours in three-hour batches to allow the dsc team to cycle through some badly needed shut-eye. 00:14 - There's trouble at the Ford Chicane - we think involving (perhaps appropriately) the remaining Ford, this the Class leading GT1#60 car. It pits with a missing rear wing. Also possibly involved in the same incident is the #24 Oak Racing Pescarolo - it cuts across the infield to pit lane missing its entire front left corner. Safety Car. Already in the garage was the #72 LAA Corvette which had been running second in the GT1 class. That allows the #50 Larbre Saleen to profit and it's immediately up to second in class with the Matech Ford stationary ahead. Mucke pits under the Safety Car - Gene immediately up to 6th. 00:22 and the Safety Car will be in this lap. 00:24 - Away we go again and immediately we have big trouble for Jean Christophe Bouillon - he spins and hits the barrier at the Ford Chicane hard at the rear. The car had been running 11th - JCB walks away, but #13 is out of the race. It looks like the Lola man was caught out on cold tyres. Vanina Ickx will inherit 11th position almost immediately. Thomas Mutsch: "I was braking for the Ford Chicane where you can also take the exit to the pits - an LMP car came up the left of me and moved across, he put me into a spin and when I span back onto the track he crashed into me. I had about 30 minutes to go in my stint. The car has been easy to drive and there has been nothing for us to worry about until now. The team is very driven and we think the repairs will take around 30 minutes." The prototype was indeed the Oak car. The Saleen has now taken the lead in GT1 but has the top five GT2s ahead of it on the road. Pilet is up to third in GT2, passing Alesi on the road just after the Safety car pulled off. Wolf Henzler is well in touch too in the #77 Felbermayr Proton Porsche. 00:35 The leader pits - all routine - fuel, tyres and Sarrazin. RML have hit a rabbit - Phil Barker is reportedly hopping mad. Lola's Julian Sole; "The car has so much downforce it must be sucking them out of the hedges." The Hankook Ferrari is having a tidy run and has passed the remaining #78 BMW for 6th in class. McNish stops, Kristensen and new tyres join the #7 Audi. Gene is next in for Davidson to take over. #1 and #7, the delayed Audi and Peugeot, look set to duke this out through the night. McNish is pleased to have a battle on his hands after all. Bernhard in the leading Audi is looking for a battle himself, into the 3:22s and gaining on the second place Oreca Peugeot. He is only 2:49 off the leader, 1:11 off Lapierre. But then he pits for a refuel. Still, this is close enough for an Audi victory to be very much on the cards.
Franchitti is in trouble in the Highcroft HPD. He has a puncture and is crawling back. De Pourtales is in the garage with the KSM Lola. #82 is also back in the garage. It is beginning to look like the quick Risi car won't finish this race. Marino makes it back to the pits with a 10:34 lap. He rejoins, still comfortably second. #73 is circulating again, Xavier Maassen driving. They have now taken second in class from Matech, whose rebuild looks to be nearing completion. Yes, Hirschi has rejoined, eight laps down on Maassen. The Corvettes are now an impressive 19th and 20th overall. It is hard to believe these are GT2 cars - this performance is everything we always expected of the GT1s. Henzler, Narac and Alesi are waiting in the wings, but no-one other than Risi has challenged Corvette so far. Sadly, Risi will become the last non-retired car in just over half an hour, when the Lamborghini, yes the Lamborghini, will overtake it. No, the #82 car has sadly been withdrawn so we only have 42 runners. Pedro has worked out that we are losing 1.3 cars an hour, so we may have as few as 25 cars by the end. If statistics meant anything of course... Davidson took a risk down the inside right of a GT car heading down from the Dunlop bridge and the GT car moves over, pitching the Peugeot off into the gravel. The Peugeot is manhandled out and continues. Davidson was into the 3:21s, gaining on Kristensen, but lost over a minute and a half with the incident. #63 is off in the gravel at Indianapolis from second in GT2. O'Connell could now be swamped by Lieb, Narac and Alesi. He recovers relatively quickly but brings it straight in and hands over to Garcia. #9 pits. Dumas takes over the leading Audi, maintaining third place overall. Fernandez is still hanging menacingly in seventh. 007 has been banging in the mid to upper 3:20s throughout the race. These guys should be extremely happy with their performance to date. #95 AF Corse pits from fifth place in class. Alesi has lost around two minutes on his in-lap. It's a routine stop and Fisichella takes it back out again. Apparently it was a puncture - right rear this time. This might be the car that came in on Davidson earlier. Lieb and Narac are now left alone to contest third whilst Farnbacher now has his sights on Fisi. Lapierre hands over to Duval. A spin in the Ford Chicane for Tim Greaves and a bang into the tyres. He brings it straight in but is quickly sent on his way again. The Bruichladdich Ginetta Zytek is having a solid run, sixth in class. #12 is back in the garage again, rejoining again but now 10 laps distant from the next P1 in class. Collard takes over the lead GT2 Corvette as Farnbacher blitzes Fisichella to raise Hankook to the prime-placed Ferrari. The Hankook tyres may be suiting the dropping night time temperatures. 11 hours gone The race has a pattern now and there is little movement. It has the feeling of a calm and quiet night where teams will do what they have been doing and try to get through the night. 11.5 hours gone and #009 posts a second sector 1:20 slower than it should have. Barazi continues though so is maybe having difficulties. Duval has been eating into Sarrazin's lead at 4-5 seconds a lap and now sits just 75 seconds behind. Great work by the Oreca outfit to keep them well and truly in the hunt for an overall win. The #4 Peugeot pits from second place - and is wheeled back into the garage! With just eight minutes until halfway. A new right rear corner is being fitted. Sarrazin pits for a routine stop.
Dumas is up to second place, still on the lead lap at present (on pit cycle only) with Lotterer in third and Davidson fifth (With the Oreca 908 fourth but in the garage), ahead of Kristensen. The Lola Aston Martins are lapping very consistently too - they're looming large if further diesel disasters intervene! GG/PS/ML Hours 10-12 Update Jean-Francois Yvon slammed into the barriers at the Ford chicane. The purple Oak Racing entry lost its left front wheel, bodywork, brakes, suspension, and probably some driver fluids, yet it made it across the racing surface, into pit lane and straight into its garage - a bit of work. The car might still be ticking but the circuit needs work as well. The course goes yellow for the third time as the debris is cleaned up. A lap or two earlier the second in GT1 Alphand Corvette comes into the garage and all four corners are under attack. This elevates the Saleen (delayed earlier) into second in class. Apparently, the class leading Ford was involved in a separate accident and Mutsch has pulled into the garage as well. Suddenly the GT1 class looks scrambled as several minutes later it’s the Saleen on top. It also creates a milestone as now the GT2 leader is higher overall than the first in GT1. In GT2, the Risi Ferrari, which though long delayed, had been running well, is once again in for a long halt. This interruption was quite brief, which eliminated the cock-ups that marked the earlier safety car periods. However, at the end of the very first green flag lap, J-C Boullion goes straight off at exactly the same spot (Ford chicane) and hard into the barriers - cold tires and possible remaining debris. He climbs out of the car, which at Le Mans predicates a retirement. Meanwhile McNish and Montagny had a bit of a dice, purely for unlapping, but still evocative of how much faster the Peugeots are then the Audis. If the German cars win, it will be on reliability not pace. A fight for third in LM P2 seems to have broken out with Guillaume Moreau (No. 35 Oak) and Olivier Pla (Ginetta) trading fast laps for the car, but thus far not really closing up that much. A spot behind them, the largely unheralded KSM Lola has come into the garage. Near the top of the hour, the Highcroft non-Honda stops and restarts on the circuit with a puncture. The tenth hour ends with Bernhard putting in a fast one in the third place Audi before making a scheduled stop. Davidson had a moment at the kink with a GT2 car. The Peugeot car tried to get under the slower car and did not make it. The hard charging No. 1 was beached for a short time but managed to recover. However, it stymied the chase of Kristensen’s Audi. A moment later there is more drama as Johnny O’Connell momentarily takes to the kitty litter at Indianapolis. The Highcroft Honda-ish is lapping steadily now, matching but not catching their Strakka rivals. The No. 82 Ferrari has officially retired. For possibly the first time during the race, none of the four class contests have the second place car on the lead lap. That characteristic changes a bit later when pit stops bring the leading No. 2 Peugeot and the second place No. 4 Oreca onto the same lap. The key factor during this period has been a measure of rock-steadiness among key players. The three Audis are running well, as are the two healthy Lola-Astons. The LM P2 leading Strakka HPD is in the same category, as are, to a lesser degree, the GT2 Corvettes. Hour 11 and into 12 had something of a steady state, 'wait until someone blinks' type of feel. The one that eventually blinked was the No. 4 semi-works Peugeot, which lost some 15 minutes with a driveshaft failure, very dirty intakes, and assorted other maladies at one of the front corners. Lesser prototypes were having a tough time, most notably No. 12; the engine of which has rebelled to a point of non-running and is stopped out on the circuit. More than a lesser prototype (or is it less than lesser? Usual mid-race giddiness here) the No. 6 Oreca-AIM has also fallen down the charts with numerous mid-length stops. GT1 belongs to the ancient Saleen, thanks largely to continuing problems for the Alphand Corvettes and the general meltdown of the class. The very distant Lambo is in range of a podium spot. The Peugeot fragility as we approach dawn has that strange feeling. Audi may yet win this. JW | 
