Le Mans Hour 12: Ferrari leads Toyota

–by Mark Cipolloni–

We’ve reached halfway in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

With the lead swapping back and forth due to pitstops, at the 12-Hour mark it’s the #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P that leads the #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid.

The lead changed after the Ferrari team opted for fuel only on the #51’s last pit stop, which helped get James Calado out ahead of Sebastien Buemi. Before the stop, the #8 Toyota was leading with Buemi holding off Calado’s pursuit.

Richard Westbrook is third aboard the #2 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R.

The #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 with Andre Lotterer aboard is a lap behind in fourth. He’s followed by Scott Dixon, who’s now in the gold #3 Cadillac.

The #94 Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8 is out after Gustavo Menezes slid off at the first Mulsanne Chicane, and wadded it up against the tire barriers.

Paul di Resta now runs seventh in the #93 Peugeot, which is two laps down.

The #7 Toyota and #75 Penske/Porsche are the only two retirements in Hypercar so far.

The #30 Team Duqueine Oreca 07-Gibson currently leads the LMP2 class.

in GTE-Am, the #56 Project 1-AO Porsche 911 RSR-19 currently holds the lead, but it is not the fastest car in the class.

Second is currently the #54 AF Corse Ferrari of Thomas Flohr.

The Garage 56 car, runs 35th overall. Towards the end of Mike Rockenfeller’s second stint in the No. 24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, the Hendrick Motorsports crew noticed the air pressure going down on the right rear tire thanks to new real-time intelligence introduced by Goodyear for the Garage 56 project. Rockenfeller pitted on Lap 142 and was replaced in the car by Jenson Button.

“We were monitoring the tire pressure sensors and our engineers happened to see that the right rear tire was starting to lose some pressure. It was great timing, they did a great job catching it. The team was able to react and get it in here and get some new tires put on the car. It was awesome.” – Chad Knaus

Hour 12 Standings