Cadillac leads with 6 hours to go at Le Mans

Credit: Noah Romana

As it happened (from hour 12 to 18)

The order after 18 Hours:

Hypercar

1st No.12 Cadillac

2nd No.20 BMW

3rd No.7 Toyota

LMP2

1st No.30 Duqueine Team

2nd No.343 Inter Europol Competition

3rd No.43 Inter Europol Competition

LMGT3

1st No.33 TF Sport Corvette

2nd No.27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin

3rd No.78 Akkodis DSP Lexus

At the half way mark of the race, the JOTA Cadillac's were sat in a strong position, unfortunately, not soon after, the No.38 was pulled into the pits with a power steering failure. It seemed there was trouble for another main contender, as the No.8 Toyota had to serve a drive through, but it quickly recovered the time loss and maintained a top three position through the morning.

Peugeot had problems trying to reattach a new rear end, but for the most part avoided any reliability issues. They struggled with pace, but gained a place on the No.19 Genesis during the sunrise, as the No.19 had a couple of technical gremlins with the power unit.

As the French circuit was hit with sunlight, the No.12 continued to lead from the No.20 BMW. The No.8 was sitting nicely in third, although nearly a minute off the lead. The No.35 Alpine sat in fourth place, which should have been occupied by the No.101 Wayne Taylor Cadillac, had it not picked up multiple penalties.

The No.14 TDS Oreca, in the hands of Kévin Estre, hit the wall exiting Indianapolis, bringing out a slow zone thereabouts. He managed to get the car back on track with the help of a crane, but the incident took the team effectively out of contention in the LMP2 Pro-Am category.

A slow stop from the No.20 Team WRT BMW, almost 100 seconds long, cost them second place overall. The No.8 Toyota moved up to second place and was maintaining a roughly 40 second gap to the No.12 Cadillac in the lead.

With just under eight hours to go, the No.38 Cadillac that once led the race entered the garage again after the power steering issues came back to haunt them. This time, it was day over, and they pulled the blinds down on the garage and retired the car.

Roughly thirty minutes later, the No.17 Genesis stopped on track through the esses with a broken suspension. This brought out the slow zone in that area. The slow zone benefited the No.7 Toyota the most. The 2021 Le Mans winners gained a minute on the leaders, now the gap was just more than two minutes.

Cadillac's woes kept coming as the No.12 Hertz Team Jota Cadillac, the then race leader, was served a drive through penalty for slow zone infringements. This dropped the No.12 into third, behind the No.8 Toyota and the No.20 BMW.

By the following pit stop cycle, the No.8 Toyota dropped to third having taken new tyres, but got up to second on track, past the No.12 Cadillac before the end of the stint. The top three all have their tyre cycles offset by one stint to each other. In terms of fuel strategy, they are all offset by one lap to another, with the Toyota being the earliest and the Cadillac being the last.

The No.8 had its race effectively ended after urgent repairs had to be made to the car in their following stop, dropping to well over a minute behind the leading No.20 BMW.

With six hours to go, the battle for the win is between the No.20 BMW and the No.12 Cadillac. Toyotas are running third and fourth and may be dark horses that could trouble the leaders.

In LMP2, the No.30 Duqueine Team car is leading by almost ten seconds from the No.343 Inter Europol machine. In LMGT3, the No.33 TF Sport Corvette is dominating up front, around a minute and a half to the No.27 Aston Martin.