Le Mans: Toyota crew takes the lead again

Less than two hours before the finish of the Le Mans marathon and the rain is pouring down the track again.

Everyone switched to rain tires, but Jose Maria Lopez had bad luck at the pit stop: the nut of the right front wheel of his Toyota seized up, causing too much time to be lost in the pits.

The cars returned to the circuit in this order: Nicklas Nielsen in the #50 Ferrari led the way, but was chased by Brendon Hartley in the #8 Toyota. However, the New Zealander was in turn overtaking Alessandro Pier Guidi in the second Ferrari factory hypercar, and there was contact between the cars, causing the Toyota to spin out and Hartley’s car to end up on the side of the road. .

Hartley was able to return to the track, but only in 6th place, and again two Ferrari cars were in front.

Lopez moved up to third place, but it looked like Alex Lynn in the Cadillac was overtaking him. However, these two cars were still a few seconds apart, but there was only a small gap between the Argentine’s Toyota and Pier Guidi’s Ferrari, and the battle for position was very intense.

At this point it appeared that the left door of lead car No. 50 had been opened and race management announced that the problem needed to be resolved. Ferrari combined this with a pit stop and refueling, meaning Nielsen only returned to the track in 5th place.

Meanwhile, Jose Maria Lopez still managed to stay ahead of the #51 Ferrari, and the Toyota driver quickly began to increase his lead. Alessandro Pier Guidi clearly could not ride at this pace and his lead was already approaching ten seconds.

Lynn moved up to third, with Laurent Vanthour in a Porsche in fifth.

In the LMP2 class the leader is Oliver Jarvis in a car from United Autosports (15th overall), in LMGT3 – Richard Lietz in a Porsche 911 from the German team Manthey EMA.

By the way, the rain is clearly getting stronger and the visibility is getting worse…