Le Mans Hour Eight:
Nicki Thiim took over the #95 Aston Martin early into the hour, on a mission to close the gap to the GTE AM leader Paul Dalla Lana, also in an Aston Martin. Meanwhile, the #29 Pegasus Racing Morgan-OAK-Pescarolo had a moment at the first Mulsanne Chicane, slicing between a GTE Aston Martin and an LMP1 Porsche, barely making it around the corner.
Oliver Gavin is back in the #74, meaning the Corvette had a longer stop and therefore dropped back ever so slightly in the three way GTE PRO fight. Fisichella made it past Darren Turner, who was on his out lap. However, Turner was soon on the attack, closing at the Porsche Curves, but not making the move.
On the Mulsanne, Turner slipstreamed Fisichella, and got past before the braking zone for the first chicane. Elsewhere, the #14 Porsche of Romain Dumas was within a minute and ten seconds of the #12 Rebellion, however, Dumas was radioing his team, saying that he was having issues with his brakes. Would the trouble continue for the #14 Porsche team? Despite the complaints from Romain, he continued to close up on the Rebellion as the laps ticked away…
The #48 Murphy Prototypes car was stranded at the Porsche Curves, seemingly out of the running.
Back to GTE PRO, and Darren Turner was still out-front 35 minutes into the eighth hour. He had now extended his gap to Fisichella in the #51 Ferrari, who was now just under five seconds behind. Oliver Gavin was 27 seconds back from the leader in the #74 Corvette.
An interesting battle in the overall standings was taking place between the #95 GT AM Aston Martin of Nicki Thiim and the #73 Corvette of Jan Magnussen. Thiim, the Pro driver from the #95 line-up, was keeping Jan roughly two and a half seconds back. Jan was desperate to make up time, following issues during a pitstop that cost the team a lap.
After a brief loss of the lead in the previous hour, Jann Mardenborough was now back in control of the category in the OAK Racing Ligier. The young Brit was putting on a superb performance. In my opinion at least, he is right up there as one of the best GT Academy graduates, if not the very best.
So after eight hours, the #7 Toyota driven by Nakajima still leads in LMP1. In LMP2, Mardenborough continues to build his lead over Tristan Gommendy in the similar Ligier. GTE PRO is led by Darren Turner, who’s now followed by Oliver Gavin because Fisichella pitted and handed the #51 to Bruni. Paul Dalla Lana has handed the GT AM Leading #98 Aston to Pedro Lamy.
The night has fully captured Le Mans now, as the late night shift begins. It’ll be interesting to see how much attrition occurs overnight.
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