The night at the 24 Hours of Le Mans has had two protagonists, or one, and the other as a consequence of the first. The rain It worsened in the middle of the morning and Eduardo Freitas decided to deploy the safety cars (there are 3) around 03:40 in the morning from Saturday to Sunday. Some safety that did not leave the track until 08:15. The result, no action on the track. Race Management justified that decision for safety. The poor visibility in the dark Sarthe forest and the spray raised by the cars were enough arguments to keep the regulation cars for more than four hours (4:15).
Therefore, the action on the track was null, with a procession behind the sirens and the pilots and teams handling a nondescript situation. The main concern was to comply with all the safety protocols, respect the corresponding safety regulations, adapt to the speed of the pit, not overtake with the precautionary regime prevailing in the circuit to avoid sanctions. For example, like the one he planned on Toyota #7 when Nyck de Vries entered the garage behind a safety car and returned to the track behind it, breaking protocol. The team itself self-regulated the situation and avoided the sanction. In addition, that same unit had problems with the windshield, collecting oil that the Ferrari #50 was releasing, reducing visibility and losing several positions. Gazoo Racing complained that the Maranello car had not been called to repair the anomaly.
A penalty that the private Ferrari #83 of Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman and Yifei Ye did have for a contact that sent the BMW #15 of Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello and Marco Wittmann to the wall, before the rain. The German car had to retire and the Maranello car spent 30 seconds in the pit to serve the punishment. When the race was relaunched, the #8 Toyota was in charge, followed by the #6 Porsche and the #50 Ferrari. There are options for everyone, including Álex Palou’s Cadillac, seventh and regrouped after the security who left the track at 08:15
The night also left Valentino Rossi abandoning the LMGT3 category in his first participation in the 24 Hours. The #46 car led sections of the race, but its options ended when Ahmad Al Harthy, the Italian’s teammate in the BMW, suffered an accident at the beginning of the night in the area of the Dunlop bridge and was forced to retire. . In this category, at dawn the Aston Martin in which Álex Riberas is traveling is in seventh place, on the same lap as the leader, and Juncadella’s Corvette is 16th, two laps behind.
In the LMP2 category, Lorenzo Fluxá’s Cool Racing prototype remains with options in fourth place also on the same lap of the leader.
