Laurens Vanthoor leads Petit Le Mans at the half way mark, with the Porsche driver almost at the 200 lap mark as the race enters its second half.
The Porsche driver, in the #6 Porsche 963, has led for the last couple of hours. Tom Blomqvist led from pole in the #60 MSR Acura, but through pit cycles and strategy, lost the lead. His teammate Scott Dixon, who has recently taken over the car from Colin Braun, sits fourth, but is only 10 seconds off the lead.
Second is Frederik Vesti in the #31 Action Express Cadillac, with the Dane fresh in the car having taken over from Earl Bamber. He’s less than a second behind L. Vanthoor and is fighting the Belgian for the lead. Bamber’s teammate Jack Aitken fought Blomqvist hard for the lead in the first few hours, having started second. In the third hour, Aitken finally got past and put almost 10 seconds on his countryman, before pitting to hand over to Bamber, who continues in second after L. Vanthoor took the lead in the pit stop cycle.
Early in his stint, Bamber ran over a piece of debris and had to pit for a new right rear tyre. This dropped him to the back of the GTP field, with the Kiwi having to climb his way back up through the field.
“Don’t know what I ran over on that restart, but the extra stop to change the right rear put us at the back for a while,” said Bamber after his stint.
“We were able to come back and be in line with the leaders on fuel, so we’ll see how this middle section plays out. Great work by the team as usual and the car feels great.”
Phillipp Eng in the #24 BMW is third, four seconds off the lead. BMW had a lucky hand when starting driver Dries Vanthoor pitted moments before a full course yellow was called. This meant Kevin Magnussen, who replaced D. Vanthoor at the wheel, was able to jump up the field into third, where Eng remains.
In LMP2, Hunter McElrea leads in the #11 TDS Racing Oreca. Bronze-rated Steven Thomas started the car last after being disqualified from qualifying, for a technical infringement, after taking pole. Thomas moved quickly through the field and was able to take the lead before handing the car over to McElrea.
Second is Rasmus Lindh in the #22 United Autosports Oreca, while Logan Sargeant is third in the #52 PR1/Mathiasen Oreca. LMP2 polesitter, the #43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca, is currently seventh with Bijoy Garg at the wheel, after Jeremy Clarke led the race in the early stages after starting from pole in the event of TDS’s disqualification.
Max Hesse leads GTD Pro in the #48 Paul Miller Racing BMW, which his teammate Dan Harper started from pole. Second is Aaron Telitz in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus, while third is Alexander Sims in the #3 Corvette.
Finally, Simon Mann leads the GTD class onboard the #21 AF Corse Ferrari. Second in class is Tom Gamble in the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin. Charlie Eastwood in the #36 DXDT Corvette is third.
Discussion about this post