Romain Dumas made contact with Richard Lietz in the #911 GTE Am Porsche, and now the JMW Ferrari is off and on fire and the #7 Toyota has come off the road! Kamui Kobayashi trundling out of Tertre Rouge! Memo Rojas off the road big in the #35 Oreca! Rojas slows early. Who else is there? Is the Cool Racing Oreca off as well? The slow zone begins at the marshal post. Kobayashi is stopped. Full Course Yellow. On the speed limiter. What do we do next? Toyota #7 moving again. Who is at the wheel of the JMW Ferrari? Louis Prette at the wheel of it, a car that dates all the way back to 2017. A six year old chassis.
Was Vladislav Lomko, the driver from Russia off as well? The Toyota was hit from the rear, hard.. Can Kobayashi get back? Try to start the engine. They don't have enough charge on the hybrid to get back. SOC is state of charge on the battery just like your iPad, iPhone, or computer at home. #35 caught the rear right axle of the Toyota. The Ferrari walloped the #35 car. The #65 Panis Racing car could have also been in this. Full Course Yellow removed. A local yellow at that specific area of the track. Wow. Game over for #7! No repeat of their 2021 triumph. Toyota now with only a single bullet. There was a hybrid issue. The red light is flashing which means that the electricity is still fully charged on that car so the stewards cannot reach it or touch it. If you touch that car, the voltage is enough, you are a dead man.
The full Toyota team now focuses on the #8. Peugeot lead. Safety car for a gap in the traffic so the Hybrid Intervention Team can discharge and rescue the Toyota. This is going to kill the gaps. Project 1 will be chasing Iron Dames in GTE Am. Everyone drops to the back and you have your class order for each all in order. Hyper Car, LMP2, GTE Am. In American sports car races, you get your laps back behind the safety car. Peugeot in the pit lane for energy replenishment and tire, the leader, Nico Muller, Loic Duval, and Gustavo Menezes.
WRT in LMP2 are still shown in the pit lane. We are eight and a half hours into the race now. Ferrari #51 and Cadillac #2 have pitted. In the opening three 24 Hours of Le Mans races, you needed a cumulative score to win. Trophies did not exist for the winners until the 1930s. The real winner would come over the first three races in 1923, '24, and '25. You could buy a car with four seats and a roof to go out and race. A driver, if they had a canopy, a driver was working on his own car. The driver have to put the canopy up, run two laps, take it down, and go back to race.
The Toyota #7 has been lifted onto the low loader, the flatbed truck. Toyota #8 and Porsche #6, neither of them have pitted yet. Again, behind the safety car, the #94 Peugeot 9X8 leads the motor race. Teams will be managing their places to pack up behind the safety car. Ryo Hirakawa is in the sole remaining #8 Toyota. Pit stop time for the #708 Glickenhaus. The two Glickenhaus cars, the #38 Jota Porsche 963, and the Vanwall, will not be on the lead lap. The NASCAR Cup car is going to plummet to the back and the #923 Racing Team Turkey LMP2, I think it is game over. The mountings, the pickup points on the suspension and the chassis are not working.
Toyota #7 has been recovered but the car is finished. No joy for Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway, and Jose Maria Lopez. But the sister #8 Toyota is now second behind the Peugeot. The Toyota's have just not had the right stuff today, well, tonight. Alex Lynn is in the #2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac. Toyota were already on the soft tires in the daytime and Ferrari and others were using the harder Michelin tires. Toyota could come back into the running. #56 Porsche and #34 Inter Europol LMP2 are told to get behind their assigned safety cars, safety car C and safety car A. Peugeot Total Sport bos Jean Marc Finot says they are not as fast as they want to be but they are second right now.
They are hoping everything is going to go their way as the night goes on here at Le Mans. The GTE Am and LMP2 leaders were called to the lane to go back out behind the next two safety cars. Maybe they were let out of the lane too early. Ben Barnicoat in the #80 AF Corse LMP2 now has a new tail on that car sharing with Francois Perrodo and Norman Nato. Jota, Duqueine, and Cool Racing all into the lane. As far as United Autosports and Tom Blomqvist, recall he was called to the medical center. He was cleared by the medical team. Pipo Derani is now at the wheel of the #311 Action Express Whelen Cadillac, seven laps down.
Fabio Scherer was run over by the Corvette with his left foot being the braking foot that he cannot stand on. Weird. That is his braking foot and the morning is still the race. Inter Europol, Team WRT, and Panis Racing the top three in LMP2. Sebastien Bourdais told on the radio to give people "Sebastien magic" and try to get by the Peugeot to get back on the lead lap. Cadillac #3 sixth overall and the first car a lap down. Rui Andrade, the Angolan driver is driving the leading #41 WRT LMP2 car. Andrade sharing with Louis Deletraz and Robert Kubica.
Filipe Albuquerque back in the pit lane in the delayed #22 United Autosport Oreca LMP2 car after Fred Lubin clattered the barriers. He is a Le Mans rookie this year as we are not even halfway through this race yet. Ryo Hirakawa needs to use more engine braking to save fuel. They are fuel limited but not limited on total energy. Iron Dames, the #85 Porsche 911 RSR-19 is back to the lead in GTE Am. Mike Rockenfeller now at the wheel of the #24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 NASCAR Generation 7 car. Everyone is able to merge now.
A couple of the Porsche's are seventh and eighth. Now we are hearing the world feed commentary team for the evening with Jim Roller, Graham Goodwin, and Anthony Davidson. All cars move left including the safety car to prepare for the pass around. No zigzagging. Start the passaround. Again, we also welcome Martin Haven on the insomniac coverage. Any car in any class in the queue I believe is going to be ready to go.
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