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LM24 Hour 14: First light shines on Ferrari
The sun is rising over Circuit de la Sarthe and the race is about to get intense with 10 hours left. The soft tires that several Hypercar teams have run during the night will give way back to the medium Michelins as the track warms up.
At the end of the hour in LMGT3, Alessio Rovera pushed the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 into the class lead, passing Tom Van Rampuy in the No. 81 TF Sport Corvette Z06 GT3.R. When Charlie Eastwood put the Corvette into the lead in the previous hour, it marked the first time a Corvette led at Le Mans in the GT3 era.
Richard Lietz was back In the No. 92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche 911 GT3R and challenging Van Rampuy for second. The two Akkodis ASP Lexus RC Fs continue their top-five run, Arnold Robin in the No. 78 heading Clemens Schmid in the No. 87.
Porsche Penske's No. 6 963 of Matt Campbell may have been the official leader at dawn, but in reality it was Phil Hanson in the No. 83 Af Corse Ferrari 499P in control, having taken the car over from Yifei Ye after Ye put it back into the lead in the previous hour. James Calado in the No. 51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P chased Hanson, some 14s down the road.
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It may be a Ferrari party up front, but then it becomes a fight between manufacturers, five of them filling the next five spots, including Toyota, the second factory Ferrari, Porsche and Cadillac.
Kevin Magnussen had just taken over the No. 15 BMW M Team WRT M Hybrid V8 that has had tastes of the top five from Raffaele Marciello, but Marciello was pretty realistic about the team's chances of victory.
“We have to say we are quite happy,” said Marciello. “We improved a lot compared to last year. We are getting closer and closer, but the Ferraris are out there, so if we cannot beat them, we'll try to be the best of the rest.”
Hope for a good finish for the No. 18 IDEC Sport ORECA left with its right rear wheel on the Mulsanne Straight. Andre Lotterer had just strapped into the car, and it was on its out lap when the wheel departed the car. It had been consistently in the top five in LMP2.
That incident brought out a slow zone, during which the Ferraris tried to stretch their advantage by taking early, lower-cost pit stops.
VDS Panis Racing leads LMP2 with Esteban Masson in the No. 48 ORECA over the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition entry of Nick Yelloly. The remaining IDEC Sport ORECA ran third, Job Van Uitert in the No. 28.
Behind the No. 9 Iron Lynx-Proton car driven by Jonas Reid, PJ Hyett was in fifth overall and leading the LMP2 Pro-Am category in the No. 199 AO by TF ORECA. However, Hyett was being investigated for a slow zone procedure violation.
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Richard S. James
Richard James is motorsports journalist living in Orange County, Calif, who has been involved in the sport to some degree for three decades. He covers primarily sports car racing as a writer and photographer, with occasional forays into off-road and other forms of racing. A former editor of the SCCA’s publication, SportsCar, he has a special love for the grass-roots side of the sport and participates as a driver in amateur road racing.
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