The No. 38 Hertz Team Jota Cadillac leads the 24 Hours of Le Mans after six hours, with BMW and Toyota remaining strong contenders. After being stripped of their pole position on Thursday afternoon, the No. 38 Hertz Team Jota Cadillac has fought back to the front and leads at the six-hour mark. A mostly clean first quarter of the 94th 24 Hours of Le Mans ends with a Cadillac, BMW, and Toyota all favorable for a win with 101 laps complete.
The No. 38 Hertz Jota Cadillac leads the No. 20 WRT BMW and No. 8 Toyota TR010 with one less pit stop completed. Fortunes flipped between the Cadillac, the original pole sitter, and the No. 15 BMW, which inherited the pole after it was found the No. 38 crew left the pits 7 seconds early. The Cadillac now leads as the No. 15 falls a lap down after battling back to a fight for the podium once already.
View Price on AmazonLeading into the end of the last hour, trouble for the pole-sitting No. 15 fell to last place in Hypercars after contact with the No. 3 DKR Engineering LMP2 entry caused a lost tire. Dries Vanthoor was battling for fifth place before the incident and was preparing to bring in the WRT BMW Hybrid V8 for a driver swap with race starter Kevin Magnussen.
Magnussen lost the lead on the start after near contact with the BMW No. 20 that started in fourth position. By the six-hour mark, the No. 15 had rebounded to as high as fifth position before losing control and going wide shortly before the end of the sixth hour, giving up fifth to Jordan Taylor.
In the first hour, Toyota was the first to deviate from the norm, undercutting the field with both the No. 8 and No. 7 TR010 Hybrids. The Toyotas struggled in qualifying, failing to advance to the top-10 in Hyperpole. Locked into midfield starts, the undercut made sense for the Japanese manufacturer.
This decision was more fruitful for the No. 8 TR010 crew than the No. 7 TR010 crew. The No. 7 is struggling in the Hypercar midfield due to not having the same luck with clean air as its sister team, and a slow puncture caused by debris picked up after contact between the No. 51 Ferrari 499P and an LMP2 car.
Source: roadandtrack.com
