Le Mans 24h, H18: Porsche surges ahead of Toyota as safety car returns

The factory #6 Porsche Penske 963 of Laurens Vanthoor was circulating a few seconds clear of the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID driven by Ryo Hirakawa after 18 hours of racing at Le Mans, with marshals still replacing the barriers at Indianapolis under the caution period.

Heart of Racing driver Daniel Mancinelli was being lapped by the #51 Ferrari LMH car when the Italian lost control of the #27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 on his own and slammed heavily into the barriers, with his car going airbone and landing upside down on the track.

Mancinelli walked away unscathed from the crash, but the SC had to be deployed to recover the car and replace the tyre barriers at the inside of the banked left-hander.

The #6 Porsche of Vanthoor was leading the race by 18s when the SC bunched the field back up, having jumped the #8 Toyota in the previous round of pitstops.

Ironically, it was a crash for the sister #4 Penske car that had helped Vanthoor circle into the lead, with the Belgian pitting under a slow zone caused by Felipe Nasr losing the rear-end of his 963 on slick tyres into Indianapolis. The incident put the additional Penske IMSA entry out of the race.

The #8 Toyota had been leading the Hypercar class until that point, with Hirakawa having made a clean restart in the 17th hour after the racing finally resumed after a four-hour safety car period.

Hirakawa had pitted a few laps before Nasr’s off in green conditions, which allowed Vanthoor to jump into the lead, but was still running a comfortable second ahead of the sister #7 car driven by Nyck de Vries. 

De Vries was the first Hypercar runner to switch to slick tyres as he was already due to make a pitstop, having been running out of kilter with its rivals. However, that also meant that he had to return to the pitlane under the safety car for more fuel, which dropped him down the order.

The #2 Cadillac was the main beneficiary as Earl Bamber assumed third place, but he is yet to complete his pitstop. Fourth place is being held by the #5 Porsche of Frederic Makoweicki, who fended off Robert Shwartzman in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari before the safety car period.

The #50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco was running right behind the duo and continues to hold sixth, ahead of the #7 Toyota now driven by de Vries’ team-mate Kamui Kobayashi.

The LMP2 class featured a number of changes in the last three hours, as the order shuffled during every pitstop phase.

At the end of hour 18, Ben Barnicoat was back in front in the #183 AF Corse ORECA-07, ahead of the #22 United Autosports car now driven by Oliver Jarvis.

Vector Sport also made headways after putting platinum-rated Patrick Pilet in the car, while the #37 Cool Racing dropped to fourth as Lorenzo Fluxa took over.

In LMGT3, the class-leading #92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche 911 GT3 R dropped out of contention with gearbox issues, as Klaus Bachler brought the car into the garage shortly after the race went green again. It took 24 minutes for the German squad to fix the problem, which meant it lost five laps and in the lower regions of the top 20. 

The sister #91 Manthey EMA Porsche of Richard Lietz took over the baton from Bachler, but dropped to third late in the 18th hour after making a pitstop.

That put Gregoire Saucy in front in the #59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3, ahead of the #87 ASP Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth.

Results after Hour 18: