2023 LM24, Hour 10: Peugeot Leads, Ferrari #50 Suffers Mechanical Drama

The 24 Hours of Le Mans restarted after a Safety Car intervention at 1:17 AM local time.

Nico Muller led the field back to the start-finish line aboard his #94 Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8, but at the first Mulsanne Chicane, it was Ryo Hirakawa who took the lead in the #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 HYBRID!

An hour after the dreams of the sister #7 crew of Conway, Lopez, and Kobayashi were dashed, Hirakawa had come through to avenge their defeat, driving to the lead of the race.

After a Full Course Yellow for an LMP2 class crash, the #8 Toyota pitted and is now third in the running order with Sebastien Buemi aboard for his second stint.

On the restart, the #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P of Alessandro Pier Guidi took the lead from the #94 Peugeot of Nico Muller, then dove into the pits for a pit stop and a change of drivers to James Calado.

It’s Muller who now leads after ten hours of racing, with Alex Lynn running second in the #2 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, at the top of the hour. Calado is in fourth in the #51 Ferrari.

With the #75 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 already retired from the race, the #5 Porsche has now gone to the garage for an extended period with a cooling system problem.

And just before the top of the hour, the #50 Ferrari went straight to the garage as mechanics rushed to diagnose a leak within the red and yellow prototype! Once the most reliable presence at the front of the field, things are not going according to plan for the Prancing Horses from Maranello.

Keep an eye on Sebastien Bourdais, who has worked the #3 Cadillac back into the overall top five after the awkward collision on Saturday afternoon under the Dunlop Bridge.

In LMP2, Jakub Smiechowski still leads in the #34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07-Gibson, he was nine seconds up the road from the second-ranked #30 Team Duquiene Oreca of Rene Binder.

Rui Andrade runs third in class aboard the Team WRT #41 which has been steady all race long, and now running fourth and leading LMP2 Pro-Am for COOL Racing is Malthe Jakobsen in the #37!

During the final minutes of the Safety Car, with Ben Barnicoat leading LMP2 Pro-Am, the #80 AF Corse Oreca suffered a suspected transmission failure and went to the garage, conceding the sub-class lead.

Pietro Fittipaldi was turned around by another car while entering the first Mulsanne Chicane, and that contact and spin left the #28 JOTA Oreca stranded in the gravel.

Prema Racing’s hopes of winning LMP2 came to a sudden end when Daniil Kvyat crashed the #63 Oreca 07-Gibson at the Porsche Curves. Race Director Eduardo Freitas declared a Full Course Yellow to clear up the incident.

Co-driver Doriane Pin and her ambitions of being the first woman to win her class at Le Mans since 1975 are dashed with the Prema #63’s retirement, and with the #9 car nine laps down, the Italian team can be ruled out as a factor in LMP2.

It’s the fourth LMP2 class retirement of the race.

It was a mostly quiet hour in GTE-Am, with the only incident of note being a drive-through penalty issued to the #25 ORT by TF Aston Martin for passing under yellow during the ‘next slow’ sector last hour.

Matteo Cairoli in the #56 Project 1-AO Porsche 911 RSR-19 has returned to the lead of the class, making short work of the #85 Iron Dames Porsche and #54 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE EVO on the safety car restart at the top of the hour. Cairoli has been at times up to five seconds per lap faster than Castellacci and Gatting, and has once again pulled out a significant lead of over 30 seconds.

Castellacci in the #54 AF Corse Ferrari sits in second, with the ORT by TF #25 Aston Martin back into third with Ahmad Al-Harthy, despite their drive-through penalty.

While the #56 has made the best use of Platinum-rated Cairoli during the night hours, that will come with a price to pay later as other teams burn through their Am-rated driver time under the long Safety Car and Full Course Yellow periods.

The FCY to recover the #63 Prema Racing Oreca saw the #85 Iron Dames Porsche and #911 Proton Competition Porsche into the pits from the leading group; Rahel Frey and Martin Rump back out on track in fourth and fifth respectively. The #911 has been contending with a broken diffuser, which was observed to be flapping wildly down the Mulsanne Straight, however the performance of the car seems to be minimally affected if at all.

The #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari is the last car on the lead lap in GTE, sitting in sixth place. The top ten is completed by the #86 GR Racing Porsche, the #33 Corvette Racing Chevrolet, the #98 Northwest AMR Aston Martin, and the #88 Proton Competition Porsche, all of whom are only a single lap down.

The #24 Hendrick Motorsports Camaro has continued to run trouble-free, sitting in 36th overall and a lap off the GTE-Am leaders. The car has been comfortably plodding away, Mike Rockenfeller is now behind the wheel.