Le Mans Hour Seventeen:
So, the race was no longer in the hands of the #2 Audi team. The #1 of Gene flew past the pits once more, and shortly afterwards the #20 Porsche of Webber passed by to move Fassler down to third. An ‘intervention car’ was on track and arrived at the SMP Racing Ferrari crash scene, but not because of the driver, who was fine. The intervention car was necessitated by Armco and fence damage.
The crash then needed a Safety Car, as heavy machinery was required to fix the barriers. It looked as if we were going to have a long Safety Car period. The #2 was back out on track with Marcel Fassler still behind the wheel. He had fallen three laps behind the rest of the pack, and with the Safety Car poised to be out for the foreseeable future, there was not much he could do to chase down the Porsche and sister Audi ahead of him.
However, with seven hours and twenty five minutes to go, the Safety Car was off-track, and once again the race was green, albeit with the Slow Zone at the Porsche Curves still in force. The Team Taisan Ferrari, being driven by Pierre Ehret, had an incident almost identical to the one they had in the early stages of the race, going off at the second part of Indianapolis.
The #34 Race Performance Oreca of Michel Frey was hindered by a 30 second stop/go, but carried on without too much trouble.
And, with ten minutes left in the hour, the Slow Zone went green again with repairs being finished at the Porsche Curves. Mark Webber was now two and a half minutes behind Marc Gene in the #1 Audi, but he was still clearly in the hunt in a race that was proving to be unpredictable. Would it be a tenth win for Tom Kristensen? The perfect return for Porsche? The fightback from Marcel Fassler and co.? It was all still wide open at Le Mans…
So with seven hours remaining it was Marc Gene out front in LMP1, while Mark Shulzhitskiy was still leading in the OAK Ligier. GTE PRO was still being led by Giancarlo Fisichella in the #51 Ferrari. It seemed as though Stefan Mucke was closing him down in the Aston Martin, while Kristian Poulsen was still out front in the GTE AM class.
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