H22: Le Mans makes its selection

Cruel disillusionment among Imsa Performance, which loses its second car. After the abandonment of the Porsche 997 No. 70 Saturday at 22:25 p.m., No. 76 is also out of the race. Patrick Pilet, the youngest driver in the crew, spoke following this retirement: ? We have nothing to reproach the team for. Everyone was impeccable, both in terms of mechanics and strategy. We encountered a clutch problem, we thought we had fixed it but it didn't work. It's a real shame because, apart from that, the car was perfect. »

The Porsche is not alone in this case. The No. 6 Corvette C64R, which had managed to gain the upper hand over the No. 63 after a valiantly won arm wrestling match, stopped at the edge of the pit lane. A transmission problem would also have hampered the progress of the American car.

In LMP2, the n°5 Porsche RS Spyder of Navi Team Goh thought it could worry the Essex team model. By spinning off two hours from the end, losing a lot of time to get going again, the Japanese team almost lost all hope. The No. 31 Spyder of the Elgaard-Poulsen-Collard crew can then think of victory in its category.

Meanwhile, the domination of Ferrari in GT2 becomes impressive, with the first five provisional places going to cars from the prancing horse brand. And, as for many hours, the crew of the Risi Competizione maintains the advantage.

In LMP1, the premier category, the positions are fixed. However, the Peugeot n°7 returns, lap after lap, to the Oreca-AIM n°11, which will have a hard time keeping its place in the Top 5. Two hours from the end of the race, the 908 HDi FAP takes over between 3 and 10 seconds per lap.

Note that, contrary to some forecasts, it should not rain on Le Mans. The cloudy ceiling stretched high and high in the atmosphere, a shy sun pointing its rays towards the stands, which were getting more and more gray as the finish of the race approached.