Le Mans: Toyota leads, Alpine in trouble

After the first four and a half hours of the Le Mans marathon, Toyota’s hybrid powertrain hypercar duo leads the pack, and now the pack is led by the number 8 car, driven by qualifying winner Brandon Hartley.

However, this does not belong to the category of surprises, unlike the problems for the Alpine team, which arose already at the end of the third hour of the race. The crew of the sports prototype A480 was in 5th position, there was a change of Mathieu Vacsivière, but the French driver had to enter the pits due to a clutch failure.

It is worth recalling that a year ago this team took third place in the general classification, losing only to Toyota teams, and they know how to achieve reliable operation of equipment. But today something went wrong at the start of the race.

Car number 36 sat in the pits for over 13 minutes, during which time Alpine mechanics were able to clear the fault; seat in the cockpit was taken by Andre Negrao and returned to the track, but only in 27th position and more than four laps behind the leader.

Given that Alpine probably won’t be able to win back, especially as the car returned to the pits after some time, one of the crews of the US Glickenhouse team will most likely claim a podium finish in the general classification. So far, Roman Dumas is in third place in a tail number 708 car.

In the LMP2 category, JOTA’s Will Stevens leads (5th overall), followed by Penske’s Felipe Nasr.

Leading the GTE Pro class is the No. 63 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R sports car, driven by Dutchman Nicky Catsburg, who drove for the same Corvette Racing team last year and took second place in this category at Le Mans.

Dusk over the Sarte ring is already beginning to change the daylight hours, and soon will come the most interesting and difficult night period, in which most incidents take place.