The 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans has reached its halfway point, and the third-placed SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1-AER has crashed out of podium contention in a major way.
Egor Orudzhev lost control of the #17 car at the beginning of the Porsche curves and heavily hit the tyre barrier, significantly damaging his car. The crash has handed third place to the #3 Rebellion of Thomas Laurent, Gustavo Menezes and Nathanaël Berthon.
Up ahead, the pair of Toyota TS050 Hybrids continue to do battle. The #7 of Kamui Kobayashi leads the #8 of Sebastien Buemi after it just came out ahead in the last round of pitstops.
In LMP2, G-Drive is leading comfortably after a mega stint by rookie Job van Uitert, who has since handed over to Roman Rusinov. The Aurus 01-Gibson is leading by about a lap ahead of the #36 Signatech Alpine of Andre Negrao, Nicolas Lapierre and Pierre Thiriet.
In GTE Pro, the battle is still raging between Porsche and Ferrari, with Laurens Vanthoor leading Daniel Serra, although a safety car caused by the crashing ARC Bratislava Ligier came at a bad time for Vanthoor, as it destroyed the lead he had managed to build up over Serra. The two remain the only cars on the lead lap in GTE Pro, with third placed Fred Makowiecki a lap down in the #91 Porsche.
The GTE Am lead is still in the hands of Keating Motorsports, with Felipe Fraga in the #85 Ford currently holding a significant lead over the #90 TF Sport Aston Martin of Charlie Eastwood. The Northern Irishman started his stint sixth, but has since made his way up into podium contention. The #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche of Christian Ried is in third after having been the latest victim of Eastwood's march to the front.
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