Le Mans 24 Hours - Race Report - Hour 2

16:00 LMP1: #16 Pescarolo 03 Judd left without a driver in the pitbox - the shutters not down yet, but that looks done.

16:00 GTE Pro Roger Wills takes over the #66; one of very few driver-changes in the first round of stops in either GT class.

16:01 LMP1: Rockenfeller makes it an LMP1 top 10 again - 3:10.485 behind the leading #1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro though.

16:01 LMP2: Martin Brundle's transponder is still being erratic, and the screens momentarily suggested he'd lost ten places, but the Greaves Zytek suddenly reappeared in 18th overall, 8th in class.

16:02 GTE Pro Vilander pits, but Melo stops on the pit road and has to be pushed the final few metres by four marshals.

16:02 LMP2: Tom Kimber-Smith and Warren Hughes swap places again, the Zytek nipping through to claim 5th in P2.

16:03 GTEAm Griffin pits after a 56 minute stint in the #81.

16:04 GTE Pro Bruni now in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari. Melo managed to refire and reach its pits under its own steam and Melo has just taken the car back into the race.

16:05 LMP2: News from Gulf Racing Middle East. The delay for the #28 was caused during the first pitstop, when the front jack failed to retract correctly, and was damaged as the car moved off. The team are having to replace the unit. It is still in the pit garage.

16:07 LMP2: Having passed Hughes, Tom Kimber-Smith has moved the Starworks HPD right up under the tail of Maxime Martin's #35 Oak and looks ready to pounce.

16:07 GTE Am Piergiuseppe Perazzini is now in the #81. Elsewhere in the class Rob Kauffman has taken over the #61 Ferrari from Rui Aguas. Patrick Pilet meanwhile is back at the head of the class after the stops with Allan Simonsen a second behind in second. here we go again!

16:09 LMP2: Not mentioned previously, but Christophe Bouchut has been enjoying a good run in the #33 Level 5 HPD, and has come through to 7th in class, 17th overall.

16:09 GTE Pro Ollie Gavin has kept the lead after the stops, but has Stefan Mücke's Aston a quarter of a second behind him. Beretta is third in class, but 26 seconds adrift.

16:11 The DeltaWing's mini-skirmish within the tail-end of LMP2 continues, and there's not much air between Krumm and the Rosier for 27th, while the black #0 has moved ahead of the #30 Status GP Lola.

16:12 GTE Pro Marc Lieb is alone in fourth in class, albeit fighting for track position with the two Am leaders, but Bergmeister is close behind Bruni in the fight for fifth.

16:12 LMP2: Unbelievably, Hughes and Kimber-Smith have exchanged places again. Meanwhile, we have the #29 off at the final element of the Porsche Curves.

16:12 LMP1: Pit stop for the Toyotas.

16:13 GTE Am Sean Edwards is holding on to third in class despite intense pressure from Armindo.

16:15 LMP2: Rostan appears to have gone off in the #29 Lola without help from anyone else - Krumm in the DeltaWing was already clear. The #40 Race Performance Oreca has gone off into the gravel at MP123, just at the pitlane entry. Michel Frey was in the cockpit.

16:16 GTE Am Michele Rugolo has made a second, unscheduled, stop in the #57 Krohn Racing Ferrari and fallen to the tail of the class. Up ahead, Joel Camathias is gaining on the Kauffman Ferrari in the #55 JWA Avila Porsche.

16:17 GTE Am Pilet gets a breather as Marc Lieb's Porsche gets between the #79 Lizard and #97 Aston.

16:18 LMP2: Michel Frey returns the #40 to the garage, where the team start clearing out several kilos of gravel. More favourably,John Martin has taken Franck Mailleux (#23 Signatech Nissan) for 21st overall, 11th in P2.

16:18 LMP1: Audi preparing to bring their cars in - and here come the #2 and #1 Audi's. 20 seconds between the two of them as they enter the pit lane.

16:19 Message from race control: "Caution: marshals cleaning pit lane entry of gravel"

16:20 Conditions on track continue to improve. There is now bright sunshine, and the air temperature has risen a couple of degrees.

16:21 LMP2: The class is into its second round of scheduled pitstops, with Hughes, Kimber-Smith, Bouchut and Brundle the first group to enter the pitlane

16:22 GTE Pro Bergmeister drops the #80 Porsche into the Indianapolis gravel and has to be dragged out. Bruni had already pulled out a two second gap on the Flying Lizard car and is well clear of Garcia. Bergmeister drops to eighth in class and pits.

16:22 GTE Am The #97 Aston pits - too early for a scheduled stop - and is plummeting down the timing screens.

16:23 LMP2: Sight of the #29 Gulf Racing Middle East Lola suggests that the car will not be rejoining the race. The front left wheel looks seriously realigned, and there is extensive bodywork damage.

News from the DeltaWing garage that the car has made a second pitstop, and work was carried out to address a fault with the gearbox actuator cooling system.

16:24 GTE Am The Krohn Racing second stop was tyre-related. Rugolo wasn't happy with his tyres, so the team replaced them as a precaution.

16:24 GTE Am Simonsen reports a misfire and sounds very pessimistic for the car's prospects for the rest of the race.

16:25 LMP2: The second group of P2 cars makes this scheduled pitstop. The true class order may take a few moments to resolve. Olivier Pla is one of four not yet to have completed a second stop.

16:25 GTE Pro As one Vantage hits trouble, Stefan Mücke takes the #97 into the Pro lead ahead of Gavin.

16:26 The DeltaWing has been pushed back into the garage so that more people can work on the gearbox.

16:26 GTE Am Camathias takes tenth in class from Kauffman.

16:27 LMP1: Last lap for Sébastien Bourdais was a 3:36.425 - quickest lap of the car so far, still only 52nd overall.

16:28 LMP2: Olivier Pla pits from the class lead - he ran three laps further than most of his rivals; repeating the apparent fuel-efficiency that gave him the edge forty minutes ago.

16:28 GTE Pro Beretta gets the Dunlop Curves horribly wrong and leaves the #71 AF Corse car buried in the gravel. The recovery process looks like being quite a protracted one. Marc Lieb gratefully accepts the present of third in class.

16:30 GTE Pro Beretta rejoins, but has dropped to seventh. Meanwhile, Pat Long is now in the similarly delayed #80 Porsche.

16:31 GTE Am Armindo is now up to second at the expense of Edwards.

16:32 LMP2: Exceptional pit work from Oak ensures that Pla returns to the track with an even larger lead than he had previously. He heads the pack by 25 seconds. Ayari is now holding second by five seconds from Tom Kimber-Smith, with Maxime Martin the loser in that last raft of stops. Down to 4th in class, he now has Warren Hughes on his case, and the Geordie is pushing hard in the #48 Murphy Prototypes Oreca.

16:33 GTE Pro 'Team Manager Car 59 Report Immediately To Race Control'

16:35 GTE Pro Mücke leads Gavin by three seconds, but lost eight-tenths to the Corvette on the last lap. Probably traffic-related.

16:35 The DeltaWing is still in the garage having the gearbox issue sorted, and has dropped to 50th overall.

16:35 LMP1: Lotterer is now 21.4 seconds clear of McNish. The two Audi's are in third and fourth - about a minute behind the race leader. Rockenfeller is catching Belicchi.

16:36 LMP1: Kane's last lap was a 3:33.720. Quicker than all other LMP1 petrol cars and matching the times of two of the Audi's at the moment.

16:37 GTE Am The Pilet-pedalled Porsche is 50 seconds clear of the second-placed car in the Am class, and for the first time in the race we have no active battles underway in the class.

16:37 LMP2: The battle for fourth in P2 is really hotting up now. Hughes was threatening Martin anyway, but the Oak racer has held back the Murphy Oreca enough to allow Matthias Beche to close on Hughes, so we have all three cars running nose-to-tail.

16:39 GTE Pro And it's quite quiet in the Pro class as well as the mo, although Bruni seems to be quickly gaining on the third-placed Felbermayr Porsche of Lieb.

16:39 LMP2: Not a good half-lap for Beche, and he's dropped back from Hughes, but it's only a matter of time before the Murphy Oreca gets ahead of the pink and black Oak. Hughes is weaving from side to side behind the Morgan as he seeks a way by.

16:40 LMP1: Lotterer sets the fastest sector of the day in sector 2 - as Rockenfeller has passed Belicchi and is now into seventh overall. Meanwhile the Strakka Racing car, down in 51st position is leading the Michelin Green X Challenge.

16:41 LMP2: The #2 Audi dices through the duel, briefly separated Hughes and Martin, and allowing Beche to rejoin the scrap.

16:41 GTE Am Camathias sets his fastest lap of the race so far as he tries to respond to the threat from Rugolo's Ferrari, but the #55 Porsche is still four seconds slower per lap and will lose a place in about two laps time.

16:43 GTE Pro Pat Long's #80 is reported to have slowed on track and is trying to get back to the pits.

16:43 LMP2: The #28 Gulf Racing Middle East Lola has rejoined, after replacing the errant air jack unit, with Ludovick Badey still doing driving duties.

16:43 LMP1: One of the Rebellion Racing Lola's just collected some of the debris at the Ford Chicane. Lotterer improves the second sector time again to 80.4, as Wurz sets his fastest sector 1 time. 1 hour and 43 minutes into the race and the Toyota's are still third and fourth at 30 seconds now.

16:44 GTE Pro Mücke pits from the lead and Darren Turner takes over.

16:45 LMP2: Thrilling dice for position through the Porsche Curves as John Martin sweeps past Martin Brundle to move the ADR-Delta back through 7th . . . only to lose it again as he spins on the run up towards Dunlop.

16:46 LMP2: That spin cost Martin all the ground he'd worked so hard to regain, and the #25 drops back to 9th, with Brundle and Bouchut both moving back through.

16:47 GTE Am Sean Edwards pits with a rear-left puncture.

16:47 GTE Pro Pat Long gets back to the pits with rear-suspension damage.

16:48 LMP2: Remarkably, the dispute over 4th is undiminshed, as Hughes and Beche continue to dice through the traffic in their efforts to hunt down Martin in the #35 Oak.

16:49 GTE ProDominik Farnbacher (#59 Luxury Racing Ferrari 458): "We have a good pace and the car is really good.  We’re very good on fuel, perhaps a bit too good because we had the confidence to try and do an extra lap, we made it to pit-in, but didn’t make it from pit-in to the pit!  It has cost us around two laps and will be hard to get it back so maybe we’ve gambled too much and thrown away the win.  We’ll try to push and see how far we can go and we’ll have a more cautious strategy for the rest of the race."

16:50 GTE Am: IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche #67 has gone straight at the Michelin Chicane.

16:52 LMP2: The P2 trio is a challenge for the P1 pack as they come through to lap them - the Pescarolo Dome coming through to add one lap, the #4 Audi weaving between them to add a second.

16:53 GTE Am Pilet pits from the lead and hands the #79 Lizard Porsche over to Spencer Pumpelly.

16:55 GTE Pro Ollie Gavin has handed the #74 Corvette over to Tommy Milner as the lastest cycle of stops continues.

16:55 LMP2: Tom Kimber-Smith takes second from Ayari. Meanwhile, Beche has dropped back a long way from the back of the Martin-Hughes battle.

16:57 LMP2: Warren Hughes has a lucky escape, as Badey in the #28 cuts right across the Murphy Oreca's nose as they dive into the first Mulsanne Chicane. Only quick avoiding action from Hughes prevented an almost certain accident.

16:58 GTE Pro Bruni has yet to stop and leads Turner by 47s, with Milner a second further back in third. It looks like the Corvette/Aston battle will continue as before but under new ownership.

16:59 GTE Am Pumpelly leads the Am class by 40 seconds from Raymond Narac in the #67 IMSA Porsche.