Le Mans: Shvartsman’s team is in the lead, Alpine has problems

The first five hours of the Le Mans Marathon are behind us and during this period the Ferrari hypercar of the AF Corse team, driven by Robert Schwartzman, held the first position for a long time.

He replaced Robert Kubica, in whose performance we saw an interesting duel with Niklas Nielsen, a Ferrari factory driver, because AF Corse is considered a private team or, as British commentators call it, “semi-private”. Although everyone understands that it enjoys almost the same support from Maranello, and all its drivers are part of the Ferrari program in the WEC.

At the end of his shift, the Russian driver, who now drives under an Israeli license, extended his lead over the top factory teams to almost 40 seconds. Entering the pits, the Toyota hypercar with Sebastien Buemi at the wheel temporarily took first position, for the first time since the start of the race. However, some time after the next round of pit stops, the yellow Ferrari car with license plate 83 took the lead again, but it was already driven by Yifei Ye, Shvartsman’s partner.

The Chinese driver was in the lead; Ferrari’s red factory No. 50 car, driven by Miguel Molina, was in second place with a delay of just one and a half seconds. Porsche Penske driver Matt Campbell completed the top three, with only two Toyotas taking 4th and 5th. But at the start of the sixth hour of the race, the crew of the No. 7 Toyota, who were just running fifth, were given a penalty drive in the pit lane, dropping them to the end of the top ten.

But Alpine has problems not only in Formula 1, but also in Le Mans, although here they are of a different nature: on the A424 hypercar with license plate 35, something started to smoke near the engine compartment after 75 laps, and Ferdinand Habsburg parked on the side of the road.

The second Alpine car, that is to say the team to which Mick Schumacher also belongs, continues the race: his partner Mathieu Vaxivière is 12th.

In the LMP2 class, the car of the British Vector team with the Monegasque Stéphane Richelmi at the wheel is currently in the lead; he is 22nd overall; In LMGT3, the Manthey Racing team’s Porsche 911, driven by German racer Joel Sturm, is ahead of its classmates.

Source: F1 News

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