With five hours down of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, GTE Pro is the category to watch as a battle between Porsche, Ferrari and Corvette has swung into the German manufacturer's favour.
Daniel Serra took the lead in the #51 Ferrari early on in the lead, but later lost out when he and Laurens Vanthoor pitted simultaneously and the German squad sent the #92 out before the AF Corse Ferrari. The pair then stayed ahead of Corvette's Mike Rockenfeller to capture the GTE Pro lead.
In LMP1, Toyota remains dominant as Kamui Kobayashi still leads ahead of Fernando Alonso, who is contuining to take slight bites out of the Japanese driver's margins, but remains more than half a minute behind.
The battle for best of the rest between the LMP1 privateers is currently being won by SMP Racing. The pair of BR Engineering BR1-AERs are ahead of their Rebellion rivals. Mikhail Aleshin currently leads Sergey Sirotkin, with Thomas Laurent and Neel Jani trailing.
Notably, Larbre Competition's Erwin Creed was penalized after making contact with #69 Ford driver Scott Dixon. The Frenchman turned in on Dixon when entering Mulsanne Corner. As a result of which, the two cars came together and Creed was handed a penalty.
G-Drive Racing has meanwhile consolidated their LMP2 lead, which was gained by rookie Job van Uitert in the previous hour. Van Uitert has since handed over to team owner Roman Rusinov, who still leads ahead of Signatech Alpine's Andre Negrao.
GTE Am was dominated by a pair of incidents in the fifth hour. First, Paul Dalla Lana had an off at the Porsche Curves in his #98 Aston Martin. Later, Francesco Castellacci also spun at the Porsche Curves. Both drivers were able to continue and reach the pit lane.
The lead situation in GTE Am remains unchanged, as Felipe Fraga leads in the #85 Ford for Keating Motorsports, with the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche of Christian Ried in second and Wei Lu in the #84 JMW Motorsport Ferrari in third place.
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