2014 24 Hours of Le Mans Race Updates

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Tony DiZinno

Rolling updates from the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans are below…

11:30 a.m. ET: We went back to green, briefly, after a 40-plus minutes safety car period. But another one has just occurred as after a brief period of sunshine, rain has returned to the Circuit de la Sarthe. An incident between two LMP2 cars (Nos. 48 and 41) and a spin by the oldest driver in the field, 65-year-old Harold Blank in the No. 62 AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia on the Mulsanne, occurred.

We’re almost to the end of the three-hour mark, which will occur at noon ET.

10:30 a.m. ET: How fast can it change here? We’ve just had a sudden downpour and mass chaos at various points on the track.

Both the No. 3 Audi and No. 8 Toyota are crashed on the Mulsanne Corner and one of the AF Corse cars, the No. 81 Ferrari F458 Italia, is also involved.

We’ll sort this out as soon as the marshals and weather do so out themselves. We’re now under a safety car.

10:25 a.m. ET: The opening line of “Truth in 24″ has occurred: It always rains in Le Mans. And now it is, at a couple random parts of the circuit including Tertre Rouge and briefly on pit lane. Need change? Wait a few minutes.

10:15 a.m. ET: The first hour of the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans is in the books. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Toyota leads in the No. 7 Toyota TS040 Hybrid that took the pole position. Alexander Wurz had a moment as he exited just ahead of Andre Lotterer on the first round of pit stops.

Audi’s moved up nicely with the No. 2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro, driven in its first stint by Andre Lotterer. The No. 8 Toyota and No. 3 Audi were also in striking distance.

Both of the Porsches have fallen back; the No. 14 went behind the wall for nine minutes with fuel pressure issues and the No. 20 has been running two seconds off the pace all race.

Other class leaders at the one-hour mark include KCMG’s No. 47 Oreca 03 Nissan in LMP2 (Alexandre Imperatori driving), AF Corse’s No. 51 Ferrari F458 Italia in GTE-Pro (Gianmaria Bruni) and JMW Motorsport’s No. 66 Ferrari F458 Italia in GTE-Am (Seth Neiman). The latter leader took the lead during the first pit stop cycle.

The No. 0 Nissan ZEOD RC became the first official retirement, with gearbox issues.

[bigbadbrother]

Tony DiZinno

At the one-quarter mark of the 82nd 24 Hours of Le Mans, Toyota has reassumed the lead with the No. 7 Toyota TS040 Hybrid.

After Alexander Wurz started, Stephane Sarrazin took over for the second stint and polesitter Kazuki Nakajima slotted in just before the six-hour mark.

Nakajima’s lead over the No. 2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro is 46.702 seconds, and the No. 7 car has completed 88 laps of the 8.4-mile Circuit de la Sarthe.

The No. 2 Audi of Benoit Treluyer and the No. 20 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Brendon Hartley hung within a minute and a half of the Toyota through the pit stop sequences.

Hartley fell back after his Porsche suffered a puncture in the fifth hour, which required an unscheduled pit stop. Mark Webber was due to take over next, for his first Le Mans race action since 1999.

The star of the middle stint in LMP1 was Marc Lieb, in the sister No. 14 Porsche 919 Hybrid. Lieb climbed from as far back as 51st overall (the car lost nine minutes due to a fuel pressure issue) up to sixth place overall, within one lap of the fifth-placed No. 12 Rebellion R-One Toyota, the LMP1-L subclass leader. Lieb ran the middle stint after Neel Jani started, and Romain Dumas was third in the rotation.

LMP2 featured a neck-and-neck battle between the No. 35 OAK Racing Ligier JS P2 Nissan driven by Alex Brundle and the No. 34 Race Performance Oreca 03 Judd driven by the team’s Silver driver Michel Frey. Frey hung tough although Brundle made it past on a couple of occasions.

These two, plus the No. 36 Signatech Alpine A450 Nissan of Paul-Loup Chatin, all pitted within a few minutes of each other. Mark Shulzhitskiy took over the No. 35, Jon Lancaster the No. 34 and Oliver Webb the No. 36.

In the latest pit stop sequence, the No. 46 Thiriet by TDS Racing Ligier JS P2 Nissan ascended to second, the car now driven by Pierre Thiriet.

GTE-Pro saw the No. 74 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R and the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia clear of an outstanding four-car battle for third between the two factory Porsche 911 RSRs and a GTE-Pro and GTE-Am Aston Martin Vantage.

At the six-hour mark, the No. 74 (Richard Westbrook driving) led over the No. 97 Aston Martin and No. 51 Ferrari.

In GTE-Am, Aston’s pair of Vantages there ascended to the class lead after the Dempsey Racing-Proton Porsche 911 RSR pitted and Patrick Long handed off the No. 77 to Patrick Dempsey. Long put in a three-hour and 37-minute first stint in the car.

While Dempsey ran consistent times, Aston’s quicker Silver-rated drivers Christoffer Nygaard and David Heinemeier Hansson ascended to first and second in class in the Nos. 98 and 95, respectively. SMP Racing’s No. 72 Ferrari F458 Italia runs third; the Dempsey-Proton No. 77 is now sixth with Joe Foster behind the wheel.

No additional cars have been retired beyond the six already out at this point.

[bigbadbrother]

Marcel ten Caat

Toyota continues to lead overall at the halfway mark at Le Mans. Stephane Sarrazin leads the No. 2 Audi of Andre Lotterer by two minutes. The No. 1 Audi of Tom Kristensen slowed down right before the end of the 12th hour.

At the end of lap 176 Alexander Wurz handed the wheel of the No. 7 Toyota TS040 Hybrid over to team mate Sarrazin, after completing a quadruple stint in the car. Sarrazin maintained the two-minute lead that Wurz had built up during his stint.

Nissan PlayStation GT Academy graduates Jann Mardenborough and Mark Shulzhitskiy and their team mate Alex Brundle are still in command in LMP2. Brundle’s pace in the last couple of hours have resulted in a comfortable near three-minute lead for the No. 35 G-Drive Racing by OAK Racing Ligier JS P2 Nissan over the No. 36 Signatech-Alpine Alpine A450b Nissan of Paul-Loup Chatin.

While the race in the LMP1 and LMP2 categories seems to have settled for now, the fight in GTE-Pro has been an ongoing battle between the No. 97 Aston Martin Racing Vantage, the No. 74 Corvette C7.R and the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari.

Aston Martin Racing’s Bruno Senna rejoined right in front of AF Corse’s Toni Vilander and the fight was on again just after 1 o’clock. The three cars were separated by just a couple of tenths, but it was the Brazilian who kept his Vantage in the lead of the class.

At the halfway mark, right after another round of pit stops, Senna was half a minute ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella in the AF Corse Ferrari and just over 50 seconds ahead of Richard Westbrook in the Corvette.

It is an Aston Martin Racing double at the halfway mark, as the No. 98 Vantage is on top in the GTE-Am class. David Heinemeier Hansson leads SMP Racing’s Alexey Basov by over two minutes. The No. 88 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR is a lap behind in third place.