The seventh and eighth hour of the 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans has seen significant development in the LMP1 class, as well as two retirements from earlier crashes.
The seventh hour began with a stunning pass from Thomas Laurent to take third overall in the #3 Rebellion. Unfortunately, the Frenchman crashed at the second chicane shortly afterwards. The team was able to repair his Rebellion R13-Gibson in remarkably quick fashion, but is now in fifth place.
Jose-Maria Lopez took the overall lead shortly afterwards and kept it until the start of the eighth hour, when a lockup at Mulsanne put the #7 Toyota in the gravel and handed the lead back to Kazuki Nakajima. The Argentinian then put the car in the gravel for a second time and is currently some seven seconds down on the #8 Toyota.
The two SMP Racing cars of Stephane Sarrazin and Vitaly Petrov are third and fourth, a lap ahead of the pair of Rebellions driven by Thomas Laurent and Bruno Senna.
In LMP2, Jean-Eric Vergne opened up a gap to the chasing Signatech Alpine when the rivals pitted simultaneously. Andre Negrao was then held up by the Cetilar Racing Dallara, costing the Brazilian valuable team when he handed over to Nicolas Lapierre. The gap between the two is now some twelve seconds, with the #31 Dragonspeed trailing in third.
In GTE Pro, the order has stabilized somewhat after frantic battling in earlier hours. The #92 Porsche, driven by Kevin Estre, holds the lead ahead of AF Corse's Alessandro Pier Guidi and the Corvette of Antonio Garcia, who led in the opening hours. The #64 Corvette has been retired from the race following the crash in hour six.
The other car involved in that crash, the #88 Dempsey-Proton Porsche running in GTE Am, has also been retired. Satoshi Hoshino apparently no longer felt like continuing following his three incidents, and the team has retired the car.
Keating Motorsports still leads in GTE Am, with Ben Keating currently behind the wheel of his #85 Ford GT. The Texan finds himself some 22 seconds clear of the JMW Motorsport Ferrari of Jeffrey Segal, with Team Project's Jörg Bergmeister currently in third position.
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