After five hours of running of the 99th 24 Hours of Le Mans, Toyota Gazoo Racing leads the field with a 1 – 2, the #7 GR010 Hybrid, driven by Kamui Kobayashi in the car he shares with Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez, led the sister #8 car piloted by Ryo Hirakawa who completes the piloting trio of Brendon Hartley and Sebastien Buemi.
Completing the overall top three was the #708 Glickenhaus 007 LMH piloted by Olivier Pla, Romain Dumas and Felipe ‘Pipo’ Derani.
The LMP2 field was led by multiple Le Mans class winner JOTA with its #38 ORECA 07 driven by Roberto Gonzalez, Antonio Felix Da Costs and Will Stevens heading the #9 Prema Orlen Team car by 1:44.124. The sister JOTA entry was third in class, driven by Oliver Rasmussen, Edward Jones and Jonathan Aberdein.
The GTE Pro class, competing at the Circuit de la Sarthe for the final time, was led after five hours by the two Corvettes, the #63 C8-R driven by Nicky Catsburg, sharing the driving duties with Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor led the sister #64 car piloted by Alexander Simms by just over 41 seconds. The top three in the category was completed by the #92 Porsche GT Team in which Laurens Vanthoor was driving, alongside teammates Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre.
The popular GTE Am category saw the #79 WeatherTech Porsche 911 RSR-19 at the top of the class leader board after five hours with Cooper MacNeil leading Nicky Thiim in the #98 Northwest AMR Aston Martin Vantage AMR by just over a minute and a half. Ben Keating, at the wheel of #33 TF Sport Aston held the final podium spot.
The #8 Toyota, with Sebastien Buemi at the wheel, led the field away from pole position and built a small gap over Mike Conway in the #7 car. Conway’s pit crew turned the #7 car round three seconds quicker than the #8 car, allowing Conway to rejoin ahead of the #8 car.
The lead changed ahead of the end of the fourth hour when the Toyota Gazoo Racing brought both its cars in for their fifth pit stops. Lopez went off the circuit at the second chicane on his out lap, allowing Brendon Hartley though in the #8 car through for the lead,
The start of the race saw drama for the #22 United Autosports ORECA after Will Owen flew off into the gravel at Turn 1. Contact between the #22 car and the #41 RealTeam WRT car driven by Ferdinand Habsburg resulted in Owen’s off-track excursion. WRT’s pole-sitter Rene Rast received a penalty for causing the collision.
By the end of the fourth hour, Will Stevens in the #38 JOTA ORECA was controlling the LMP2 class from the front.
Corvette Racing controlled the GTE Pro class from the start with Nick Tandy in the #64 car leading Antonio Garcia in the sister #63 Corvette.
