Le Mans 24 Hours - Hour 4

Peter Dumbreck has a torrid lap - he goes off at Indianapolis (apparently after contact).

As he looks to get the Spyker back to the pits the #85 car tangles again - this time with the Norma, which comes of worse; the #38 car into the wall and sufering a lost rear wing and rear end damage. Both get back to the pits and are into their respective garages - the Spyker is quite badly damaged too:

Dumbreck believes the Norma moved over on him, possibly trying to get out of the way of faster traffic and was surprised by the stunted pace of #85.

Kristensen is ahead of Dumas as both cars pit.

In P2 Strakka lead from Highcroft, then Quifel, #35 Oak and RML, the latter dropping down from third place as it makes a stop. GT1 is the boys' Matech Ford leading from the #73 Corvette. Only built for an hour, but three hours in, these cars are holding up well so far and are the only GT1s ahead of the GT2 leaders; these being Beretta from Bruni (just) and O'Connell. Only 10 seconds covers these three. #77, #76, #95 and #89 are all separated by 15 seconds further back. GT2 is a great fight then, as expected.

The #61 Matech Ford (girl's car) has been in the pits for quite a while now and has dropped from fourth. The Lamborghini is seven laps behind but circulating, whereas the Marc VDS car is still in the garage. The WR spins -Phillipe Salini at the wheel - at the pit entrance, drives across the pitlane and misses out the Ford Chicane to rejoin the track.

Davidson has taken over three seconds out of Sarrazin and is now only a second behind for the lead.

Highcroft Racing report that the #26 car "felt a little weird" for a while after the Mansell accident - debris related? They're not sure, but the car is fine now. The team did though replace a windscreen at their last routine stop.

The Spyker's woes were explained by Peter Dumbreck; "The off at Indianapolis was entirely my fault - I made a mistake. I was bringing the car back in for a check over, it felt fine, when the Norma was knocked into me .,, I think by an Audi."

That was confirmed by Frederic da Rocha in the Norma - "It was nothing to do with the Spyker, I was hit by an Audi R15." The damage to the Norma is mainly to the rear, the team working to strip down damaged panels and suspension.

Spyker have already fixed the front end damage but the rear is an altogether different level of issue - "We'll know more in a while."

At Marc VDS it's a similar story, the rear of the car reduced by the team to its component parts - Marcus Palttala reporting that "The chassis looks fine and we think the engine and gearbox are OK too. Bas says that the temperatures and pressures were okay when he brought it back, but the airbox was cracked so we are hoping that it hasn't ingested any debris."

The slight delay for the Quifel ASM car a little while ago was for the team to investigate a temperature issue - removing some tape seems to have sorted that out.

Scott Tucker is in #14 and 10 seconds a lap slower than Andre in #6, so the Oreca moves up a place easily. Franck Mailleux has an airborne moment in the 11th place Signature Plus Lola Aston Martin.

Tomas Enge is slow on track, so the Saleen looks set to inherit third in class as the Aston Martin is pulled back into the garage.

Ginetta's Lawrence Tomlinson tells Radio Le Mans that the current understanding, limited as it is, is that Nigel Mansell suffered a left rear puncture which put him into the barriers. There have been many left rear punctures this week, in fact there have been many just in the race.

Ignoring the minute lost by the Audis due to the safety car fiasco, they have lost only around 0.7 seconds a lap to the lead Peugeots and would, we think, have been about six seconds behind the Oreca Peugeot.

Bruni has been pushing very hard and has passed (and dropped) Beretta. At the other end of the top ten, Rob Bell takes a strange line across the Playstation chicane, part way between gravel trap and escape road. No real time lost and hopefully no damage done. Vilander is ahead of Narac, fifth in class and closing on Henzler ahead.

The HPD battle is fascinating, Strakka can do a pitstop and still come out ahead of Highcroft, but Highcroft are doing an extra lap each stint.

The GT2 lead trio are still all together.

Sarrazin pits from the lead as Marc VDS announce their retiremen; the first retirement in GT1 and due to an accident, not reliability.

Kristensen's last call into the pits saw him and a photographer connect - the photographer is injured (damaged shoulder and gashed leg) but generally okay. Kristensen has lost his right wing mirror in the collision and will have to stop to replace it.

Tracey Krohn is adamant that the Radical was at fault for the earlier incident at Indianapolis:

"I was in the left hander at Indianapolis, and had commited to the corner, but he turned in on me and used me as a brake.”

The car was due into the pits anyway for attention to a possible broken rear anti roll bar. The #83 Ferrari got back out on track at 18:36 with Eric van de Poele.

GG/PS/ML

Hour 4 Round-Up

The No. 85 GT2 spikes into the barriers, taking the Norma with it. Both stagger back to the pits with parts of the Spyker pinched. Frederic Da Rocha’s left front wheel is distinctly abnormally skewed.

The two GT class contests are stabilizing with Ford No. 60 atop the bigger cars and the Risi Ferrari (No. 82, Gimi Bruni) heading GT2 over the Corvette pair. Fisichella (No. 95 Ferrari) and Wolf Henzler (No. 77 Porsche) are aboard the other cars that have had turns at the lead in this class. The Krohn Ferrari is in the garage with a suspension rebuild.

Lapierre finally handed off to Loic Duval, the No. 4 Oreca Peugeot now in a solid third as the fourth-place car of Tom Kristensen made a routine stop. The WR had a spin right at the entrance to the pits, but because of the car’s attitude on the circuit Stephane Salini had to bypass the entry and go back around for another 13.6 kilometer journey.

The report was that Kristensen’s somewhat earlier stop was occasioned by a very slight off, preceded by a few drops of rain - it remains sunny and dry on the front straight. Nevertheless the No. 7 Audi remains in fourth place. The No. 52 Aston Martin took an old man’s line through the Mulsanne Corner and has been brought into the garage with the crew taking a leisurely approach to repairs. Hirschi continues to lead that class (GT1) ahead of Xavier Maassen in the No. 73 Corvette. The Saleen has made a nice recovery to third after some earlier delays.

GT2 has closed up with Beretta’s Corvette and Bruni’s Ferrari fighting for the lead. The red Italian car grabbed the top spot, after having a lurid moment at the Ford chicken. Their battle is definitely the best of the race. Watts leads LMP 2 with the other HPD being transferred from Franchitti to Marco Werner. Among the LM P1 cars Franck Mailleux finished a triple stint in the No. 008 Lola-Aston, handing over to Vanina Ickx.

The hour ends with a nasty pit lane accident. Two of the Audis stopped simultaneously and a photographer was caught off guard and clipped by Kristensen’s car. He hit the ground while the Audi’s mirror was knocked loose. Of course, the fellow’s problems are of principal concern, but it’s another delay for Audi.