24 Hours of Le Mans: Roundup after 4 Hours

The 87th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans got underway on Saturday 15 June at 15:00, watched on by HSH Princess Charlene of Monaco.

With TDS Racing’s #28 ORECA 07 in pole position, Nicolas Lapierre quickly positioned Team Signatech Alpine Matmut’s Alpine A470 in second place ahead of DragonSpeed’s #31. Behind Team Racing Nederland’s #29 Dallara, the Aurus 01 designed by ORECA rounded out the top 5.

In LMP1, Gustavo Menezes proved tenacious, temporarily slipping into second place before firmly settling for third position. After 30 minutes of racing, he was forced to return to the garage to change out the car’s front hood. He returned to third place upon exiting pit lane.

At the same time, Team Duqueine Engineering’s #30 driven by Nicolas Jamin suffered a flat tyre heading into the first Mulsanne Straight chicane.

Stunning duel

At 17:00, a duel between Nicolas Lapierre and Jean-Eric Vergne erupted. Just as Lapierre was proving effective in pulling away from his opponent, steadily increasing the gap, G-Drive Racing’s #26 incurred a 10-second penalty on its next pit stop for failing to respect the Full Course Yellow procedure.

A few minutes later, it was the turn of High Class Racing #20 to draw a penalty of 30” for exceeding the maximum speed allowed under a Full Course Yellow.

At 18:00, Job van Uitert overtook Nicolas Lapierre and snatched the lead in the LMP2 class. But, after a pit stop and driver change for the #36 at 18:40, Pierre Thiriet took the lead in the class from van Uitert. Ten minutes later, the Dutch driver took advantage of an opening and reclaimed the lead from the French driver.

After four hours of racing, the LMP2 class was dominated by G-Drive Racing’s #26 and every ORECA 07 was still doing battle on the track! The next update coming up after eight hours.