Le Mans Hour Seven:
A bad stint for Brendon Hartley comes to a close with a lock-up, not making the Arnage corner and losing time getting underway again. He pitted, allowing Mark Webber take over the #20. The car is now fourth and quite a way behind the third placed Audi #1 of Di Grassi.
The #79 Prospeed/Weathertech Porsche of Jeroen Bleekemolen had yet another rear-left puncture six hours and fifteen minutes into the race. It’s worth noting that the #79 is a Pro car, but is still listed as AM on the timing screens because of a line-up change.
The battle I mentioned between David Heinemeier-Hansson and Alexey Basov during the previous hour has cooled down now, with David making his way past and building an advantage. However, hotshoe Andrea Bertolini has cine got into the SMP car and certainly has the pace to challenge again.
Alexandre Imperatori had a big moment in the KCMG LMP2 car, spinning on the last of the Porsche Curves, giving the wall and hit and damaging the car in the process. The car wasn’t getting underway, and the Safety Car came out. KCMG look to be out of the race. Another team that had issues earlier, Murphy Prototypes, was now running a plain black front nose. Perhaps there’s a shortage of spare parts for the team?
With 15 minutes of the hour left, the green flag waved and the race got going once more. The GTE PRO battle had closed up, with Richard Westbrook leading by 1.7 seconds from Giancarlo Fisichella and Darren Turner. Turner passed Fisi, and then set about slipstreaming the ‘Vette down the straight. He was not able to make a move, with the two cars looking very equal on-track.
And on the next lap, Turner slipstreamed Westbrook on the approach to the first Mulsanne Chicane, allowing the Aston Martin driver to out-brake the Corvette man for the GTE PRO led. Westbrook was then within the grasp of Fisichella, who was very close on the entry to the Porsche Curves. However, Westbrook found a little more time through the Curves, and it was very hard to tell whether Fisichella was close enough to slipstream as the hour came to a close.
So Nakajima still leads in LMP1 after seven hours, while Ollie Webb leads the LMP2 class ahead of Jann Mardenborough, who was hampered by the Safety Car and a pitstop. Turner leads GTE PRO, with Westbrook and Fisichella within two seconds of him. Paul Dalla Lana currently leads GTE AM in the Aston Martin.
gonna head to ford chicane and the pits for the night time stuff
