General
Excitement at Le Mans with strong Ferraris, big drama for Alpine
- Ludo van Denderen
After six hours of racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, there is still plenty of excitement. In the first stage of the race at the iconic circuit, the Ferraris (last season's winner) and the Italians' customer team (#83) are proving exceptionally strong, with the #5 Porsche and #8 Toyota good competitors. Alpine had a dramatic Le Mans race. The #35 Alpine already dropped out with an engine problem, and the #36 also had to abandon the race just before ten o'clock. For the French team, the race is over.
Early in the race, Robin Frijns saw his hopes of a nice result dashed. The Dutchman flew off the track in his BMW, to come to a standstill in the tyre pile. Frijns still managed to reach the pits, but there 23 minutes were needed to repair the car. The worst has also happened to the #36 Alpine, with Ferdinand Habsburg having to stop on track and he also immediately had to jump out of his car.
The #7 Toyota of Nyck de Vries, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez had a fine opening phase and managed to climb up from the very last to P3. However, the latter driver had to incur a drive through after speeding during a so-called slow zone (when acceleration must be reduced due to yellow flags). There was also a penalty for the #4 Porsche Penske, having driven into a slower GT car. As it got dark at Le Mans, the rain also started to fall. That should make the drivers be extremely careful during the night.
In the LMP2 category, it is the #10 Vector Sport car leading the pack. A couple of hours ago, the #46 car in the LMGT3 category was in P1. One of the three drivers in that team is the legendary MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi. In that category, it is the #92 Manthey Pure Rxcing team leading their competition.