2023 LM24, Hour 19: Toyota Versus Ferrari Is Level Once More!

Welcome back to hourly updates to the chequered flag from DSC! There are five hours remaining in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

And the battle for the overall and Hypercar lead between the #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 HYBRID and the #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P has been renewed after a problem in the pits for the leading Ferrari!

At the bottom of the hour, both Buemi in the #8 and Antonio Giovinazzi in the #51 came to the pits for routine service. But the Ferrari remained in its box well past its expected time after a change of drivers to Alessandro Pier Guidi, who had to power cycle the car. A two-minute stop allowed Buemi to drive ahead at pit exit!

While a one-minute lead inverted into a five-second deficit, Pier Guidi had the advantage of fresh Michelin rubber underneath him. With five hours and 12 minutes remaining, the Ferrari caught the Toyota with the aid of slower traffic, and in between the two Mulsanne Chicanes, Pier Guidi slipped past Buemi and back into the lead – but 3.9 seconds is still a much smaller lead than what the Ferrari had at the top of the hour!

If either of the top two has another serious issue, the #2 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R is still poised to pounce on the opportunity for itself, running at the tail end of the lead lap in third with Earl Bamber back aboard.

There’s been some driver changes but no dramatic movements at the front in LMP2.

Inter Europol Competition still leads by over 100 seconds with Fabio Scherer driving the green and yellow #34 Oreca 07-Gibson for the Turbo Bakers.

There’s another big gap between Louis Deletraz in the Team WRT #41 Oreca in second, and the Team Duqueine #30 of Nico Pino in third, which has Tijmen van der Helm in the Panis Racing #65 and Laurents Horr in the IDEC Sport #48 behind him. Algarve Pro Racing still maintains a commanding LMP2 Pro-Am lead with the #45 Oreca running 13th out of all remaining LMP2s.

Prema Racing’s woeful race in LMP2 has taken another tough turn since the #9 Oreca went to the garage after it wouldn’t restart following a pit stop. Juan Manuel Correa confirmed the car suffered a broken starter motor.

Fifteen minutes into the hour, the exit of Indianapolis Corner bit another Hypercar runner when Antonio Felix da Costa crashed the #38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche 963. Da Costa’s car snapped back to the right and hit the guardrail head-on, and a Slow Zone was deployed.

The #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 has also gone back to the garage for another extended period to deal with a problem with the high voltage system – as things have gone from awful to slightly-more-awful for the German marque in the premier class.

Iron Dames continue to lead in GTE-Am, as Rahel Frey presses on in the #85 Porsche. She’s 22 seconds ahead of Charlie Eastwood’s charging ORT by TF #25 Aston Martin Vantage. The previous winning team’s pace was two seconds quicker than anything in class and had passed Ben Keating’s Corvette on raw pace, gapping the #33 C8.R by 26 seconds in an attempt to reduce the Aston Martin’s deficit at its out-of-sync pit stops and manage fuel strategy to its advantage.

The GTE-Am battle had swung back and forth between the #33 Corvette C8.R and the #85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR-19. With the track rubbered in the Corvette led on the road before Ben Keating pitted for fuel, leaving the pink Porsche to regain the class lead. The Corvette rejoined less than a minute behind.

Corvette Racing’s position back at the head of the GTE-Am field demonstrated a supreme recovery from its earlier damper replacement misfortunes and a gritty push back through the field to regain four laps lost in atrocious conditions, not helped by some questionable slow zone decisions against the #33 car.

The top five cars in the class remain on the lead lap, and between the Iron Dames, Corvette Racing, and Project 1-AO’s “Rexy” car which is still within reach, there’s at least three potential candidates for a popular class win!