Peugeot escapes, Audi takes the blame

Everything was going well for the Peugeot No. 8. Preserved from technical problems, fast on the Sarthe circuit, the “sprinters” car pranced in the lead. But a problem with the left rear axle changed the situation. Sébastien's stop Bourdais turned into a serious repair, for a seven-minute break. A break which allowed Alexander Wurz to take the lead of the race, with 40?? and 1? ahead of the Audi R15 n°1 (Capello) and n°2 (Luhr).

But it was a spectacular accident that livened up the start of the evening. La Lola Aston Martin No. 009, which was ahead of the No. 15 Audi R2, fell back on the Radical No. 26 of Bruichladdich, which crashed into the wall in the Ford corner. The safety car returns so that the debris is collected, before releasing the horses. The other notable event is the prolonged shutdown of Audi no. 3. Already delayed at the start of the race due to Prémat's fault, the R15, driven by Bernhard, experienced a problem with fuel pressure. A problem which sends him, after several tens of minutes, to the bottom of the ranking.

For its part, simon pagenaud demonstrates his excellent form. In the Peugeot of the Pescarolo team, he overtook the No. 007 Lola Aston Martin, before seeing the No. 008 stop in the pits, effectively recovering 5th place in the race. His stop to hand over the wheel to Benoit Tréluyer gives the advantage back to the No. 008 Aston Martin but the problem of Bourdais' Peugeot and that of Luhr's Audi are the business of the pursuers.

Because Lucas Luhr actually had a big hitch. At 21:30 p.m., the German lost control of his R15, which went into the gravel before exploding its rear axle against the safety wall. A few minutes later, he had to give up. A bad evening for Audi, whose No. 3 spent an incredible amount of time in the pits before leaving.

In LMP2, the Porsche RS Spyder from the Essex team has held first position for many hours. However, after seven hours of racing, the No. 31 is only around thirty seconds ahead of the other Spyder, that of the Japanese Navi Team Goh.

In GT1, the No. 6 C63R of Corvette Racing is in the lead, as it was able to do during the last scores ahead of the Corvettes of Luc Alphand Aventures. In GT2, the Prsche-Ferrari turns to the advantage of the No. 430 F82 of Rizi Competizione, with Jaime Melo, Pierre Kaffer and Mika Salo. It is followed less than two minutes by the Porsche 997 of the French team. Imsa Performance