Situation six hours before chequered flag at Le Mans

AF Corse’s Ferrari number 83, with Prancing Horse’s official drivers Yifei Ye, Robert Shwartzman, and Robert Kubica, led the race until the eighth hour. The official Ferrari – AF Corse team’s two 499Ps were consistently in the top positions. Indeed, car number 50, crewed by Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, and Nicklas Nielsen, was in second for a long time. 

However, the yellow-liveried Ferrari lost the lead after midnight when the 499P—driven by Kubica—collided with the number 15 BMW at 10:40 p.m., with the Ferrari receiving a 30-second penalty at its 14th pit stop. 

Meanwhile, intermittent rain throughout the night impacted the teams’ strategies and caused a few off-track incidents from which the drivers emerged unhurt. Heavier rainfall led to a long Safety Car period (from 3:44 to 9 a.m.) because of poor visibility and aquaplaning when the Hypercars, contending for victory, had completed 169 laps. When the race resumed, the Porsche number 6 was ahead, with the 499P number 83 (driven by Kubica) in fifth. The number 50, driven by Nielsen, was sixth, and the number 51 Hypercar with Giovinazzi was eleventh.