[Aggiornamento ore 24:00 dopo otto ore di gara] – In the Hypercar class the duel between the two continues Toyota, with Conway-Kobayashi-Lopez’s # 7 ahead of Hartley-Buemi-Hirakawa’s # 8 twin by less than two seconds. Problems for the Glickenhaus 708, which managed to restart while remaining in front of the Alpine. Glickenhaus 709 is third in class two laps behind Toyota.
In the LMP2 class the Jota Sports of Da Costa-Stevens-Gonzalez leads with one minute advantage on the car lined up by According to with Deletraz-Kubica-Colombo at the wheel. Third place for the other Jota of Rasmussen-Jones-Aberdein who is ten seconds behind Oreca Prema.
In GTE-Pro Corvette disaster with car # 63 that was controlling the race ended up knocked out due to a mechanical failure. The # 64 twin had to replace the brake discs and therefore at the moment Porsche # 92 of Christensen-Estre-Vanthoor controls the race almost two minutes ahead of Pier Guidi-Calado-Serra’s Ferrari # 51.
Complete the quadro the GTE-Am class where the Porsche # 79 of MacNeil-Andauer-Merril leads the standings. Below is a summary of the leaders at the stroke of a third of the race.
Class leaders
⏱️ Hour 8
#HYPERCAR @TGR_WEC #7
#LMP2 @JotaSport #38
#LMGTEPRO PORSCHE GT TEAM #92
#LMGTEAM @RaceWeatherTech #79
#LeMans24 pic.twitter.com/xLB4rJHwV4— 24 Hours of Le Mans (@24hoursoflemans) June 11, 2022
The 90th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans it is only at the beginning, but already in the first four hours of the race there was no lack of thrills and thrills on the legendary French circuit. Already at the start of the test, the category that generated the first twist was the LMP2immediately protagonist a few moments from the green light: specifically, while in the Hypercar and in the other series there were no particular upheavals, the episode that generated the first controversies was generated in a contact between the RealTeam of René Rast and United Autosport of Owen Will. The American, despite having gone off the track, was then able to resume the race, with Rast subsequently penalized by one minute by the Race Direction. In all this, Robert Kubica took advantage of the contact between the two cars, thus rising to the top of the category standings, then passed by Da Costa just under an hour from the start.
At the same time, in the Hypercar, the Toyota di Buemi led in front of everyone for an hour, only to make a mistake that favored the return of the other Gazoo team of the Lopez-Kobayashi-Conway trio, with the latter still behind the Swiss. With the passing of the minutes, and with the increase in traffic on the track, a good duel in the category starts GTE AM between Picariello’s Porsche and Cairoli’s Ferrari, interrupted, however, by the thrust of Julian Andlauer’s other Porsche.
Finally, entertainment in the last minutes before the stroke of 20:00, above all for the challenge between the two Toyota Gazoo Racing for the conquest of the absolute first position. Specifically, the leadership is temporarily occupied by the New Zealander Brendon Hartley – teamed with Buemi and Hirakawa – immediately followed by the Argentine José Maria Lopez. Between the two, constantly put in difficulty by the intense traffic, the gap oscillates between the second and the 5 tenths. Badly instead l’Alpine, a little while ago forced to bring its prototype back to the garage due to a technical problem. At present, at 20:00 on Saturday evening, these are therefore the provisional leaders of all categories at the fourth hour of competition:
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