Porsche’s Kevin Estre leads Le Mans with under 14 hours to go

Kevin Estre leads Le Mans for Porsche, in a tight, close battle with the three Ferrari 499Ps in the race.

Estre, in the #6 Porsche, is leading the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kubica. The Pole drives the customer Ferrari ran by AF Corse, which also runs the factory cars on behalf of Ferrari.

Brendon Hartley in the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid is third. Kubica is half a minute behind Hartley, while the Kiwi in the Toyota is a further half a minute behind.

Ferrari were running 1-2-3 in the daytime earlier, but their pace advantage has seemingly disappeared as darkness fell and the temperatures dropped.

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Porsche are running 13-lap stints with the #6 car, while Ferrari are running a mix of 12-lap stints with the three cars. In a slight setback for Porsche, Estre had to pit after just four laps an hour or so ago when the car had a slow puncture.

Antonio Fuoco is fourth in the first of the factory Ferraris, the #50, a minute and 20 seconds off the lead. The other factory Ferrari, the #51 driven by Antonio Giovinazzi, lies seventh after receiving two penalties. The first was a 5 second penalty, to be taken at the next pit stop, for contact with Jonny Edgar’s #33 TF Sport Corvette. 

The other, more serious penalty, was a 20-second stop/go for pit lane speeding. This dropped Giovinazzi from the top positions to seventh — a testament to how close this race is.

Fifth and sixth are the #4 Porsche of Nick Tandy and the #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Robin Frijns. They’re two minutes off the lead, with Giovinazzi a further 17 seconds off Frijns. Eighth is the other BMW, the #15 car, driven by Raffaele Marciello.

Perera leads LMP2, Rovera first in LMGT3

In LMP2, the #48 VDS Panis Oreca continues to lead, with Franck Perera at the wheel. Second, a lap behind, is the #9 Iron Lynx – Proton of Maceo Capietto, with Tom Dillmann in the #43 Inter Europol Oreca third, 30 seconds off Capietto. These are all pro-entered cars; the pro/am subclass is led by #199 AO by TF Oreca, with Dane Cameron at the wheel.

Alessio Rovera leads LMGT3 in the #21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3. Ahmad Al Harthy is second, 10 seconds behind, in the #46 WRT BMW M4 GT3, while third in class is the #92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche 911 GT3 R of Ricardo Pera.