Porsche leads in LM H17, AF Corse Ferrari falters

With temperatures rising and just seven hours left in the 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours, the No. 1 Porsche 919 leads by 11 laps out front.

Chasing hard though, are the No. 2 Porsche and No. 8 Toyota which are now even further up the order. Timo Bernhard is now P10 in the No. 2 car, and the No. 8 driven by Sebastien Buemi is 15th, beginning to tackle the rear-end of the LMP2 class.

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In LMP2, it's still the No. 38 Jackie Chan ORECA of Thomas Laurent leading the No. 13 and No. 31 Rebellions of Nelson Piquet Jr. and Bruno Senna.

The action during the hour was outside the top three, with a shuffle of positions for fifth place. Initially, Filipe Albuquerque in the United Autosports Ligier took fifth off Tor Graves in the sole remaining Manor ORECA.

But behind them, Alex Brundle was on a charge in the No. 37 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA. The Briton stormed past Graves and Albuquerque soon after, to put two Jackie Chan ORECA 07 Gibsons in the top five.

GTE Pro is still a shuffling pack, the top seven on the lead lap, exchanging positions. At the turn of the hour, the No. 91 Porsche of Patrick Pilet held the lead from Richie Stanaway in the No. 95 Aston Martin by a few seconds, the No.71 AF Corse 15 seconds further back in third.

The sister AF Corse Ferrari had bad fortunes though, with James Calado in the No. 51 being pushed into its garage for repairs to the front end. As a result, the No. 63 Corvette inherited fourth in Pro – after leading briefly while out of sync – and the No. 97 Aston Martin moved into fifth. Driving the No. 97 is once again Daniel Serra, the Brazilian pushing on through the morning, breaking the GTE Pro in-race lap record with a 3m50.950s.

The Am division, meanwhile, was still a deadlock, with Rob Smith now aboard the leading JMW Ferrari, a lap ahead of the No. 55 Spirit of Race and the No. 62 Scuderia Corsa Ferraris in second and third, making it a 1-2-3 for the Italian marque.