Le Mans 2016 (Hours 13 to 18): Buemi & Conway in three way lead fight

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With six hours to go at the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours, Formula E racers Mike Conway and Sébastien Buemi are involved in a scintillating three-way lead battle in their Toyota’s. They are battling hard with the Porsche of Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas for the overall win.

The thirteenth hour started with Kamui Kobayashi onboard the #6 Toyota and Anthony Davidson in the #5, but as the early hours of the morning unfolded, first Stéphane Sarrazin and then Conway took their turns in the #6 Toyota, the car that has run at the front for most of the race. After Buemi got into the #5 car, he managed to get into the overall lead ahead of Conway, but with differing strategies between the two Toyota machines and the #2 Porsche, the lead battle keeps changing and could go any of three ways. With Buemi currently putting in rapid laptimes and Conway not showing the same pace, it appears Toyota have now split strategies between a more aggressive #5 and a more conservative #6.

After a frustrating first half of the race for Loïc Duval and Lucas di Grassi, the #8 Audi machine is now the quickest LMP1 car on track and looking to challenge for an overall podium. With six hours left in the race, anything is still possible for the Formula E duo and their co-driver Oliver Jarvis. Rounding out the Formula E interest in the LMP1 class is the Rebellion Racing trio of Nick Heidfeld, Nelson Piquet Jr and Nicolas Prost in the #12 machine. After yet more issues, that car has dropped from 26th to 42nd overall – but is now ahead of the sister #13 car that has also been hampered by issues and runs in P51 now.

In the LMP2 category, Mahindra Racing’s Bruno Senna has helped get the RGR Sport by Morand #43 car he shares with Filipe Albuquerque and Ricardo Gonzalez from P16 to P12 in class after their earlier mechanical issues. René Rast has continued to fight for the class lead in the #26 G-Drive Racing car, still holding the quickest lap of the race by any LMP2 car (a 3:36.793) and currently running P2 in class.

The two former Formula E racers in the LMP2 class, Nathanaël Berthon (#41 Greaves Motorsport) and Ho-Pin Tung (#35 Baxi DC Racing Alpine) are 6th and 13th in class respectively – Berthon’s car moving up from P10 in the last six hours while Tung’s machine has dropped down from 7th in the same timespan.

Finally in GTE Pro, DS Virgin Racing’s Sam Bird retired from the race earlier after team-mate Davide Rigon suffered a wheel rim failure while at the wheel of the #71 AF Corse Ferrari. And former NEXTEV TCR racer Antonio García has now risen from 9th up to 7th in class alongside Jan Magnussen and Ricky Taylor, as the #63 Corvette recovers from a poor start to the race.

Laurence Thorn and Renate Jungert | e-racing.net

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Images courtesy of Rajan Jangda

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