Jose Maria Lopez and Mike Conwꦉay consolidated the #7 Toyota's lead through the morning at the 24 Hours of Le Mans to sit 90 seconds clear of the♏ field heading into the final quarter of the race.

Lopez completed a long stint in the #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid as both Fernando Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima tried catching up in the #8 car, but they were unable to break the Argentine driver at t🌠he front before he handed the reins over to Conway.

Even a caution period called following a heavy crash for Pastor Maldon✃ado at Tertre Rouge was not able to help the #8 car's cause as it was placed in a different Safety Car train, leaving Nakajima with plenty of work to do at the 18-hour mark.

Maldonado's crash came when running fourth in the LMP2 class foꦗr DragonSpeed in the #31 Oreca 07 Gibson, with the damage to the car ending the team's day after it also lost its LMP1 entry overnight due to recurring problems.

The bat🌠tle for third place took a big twist as Rebellion Racing's #3 R13 Gibson was hit with a three-minute stop/go penalty for a tyre violation, wiping away Gustavo Menezes' lead over the #11 SM🐎P Racing entry.

After serving the penalty, Menezes rejoined the track directly behind Stoffel Vandoorne in the SMP-run BR Engineering BR1 car, only to then spin out at th✅e Porsche Curves and beach his car in the gravel. While the car was recovered and able to continue, it cost Menezes two laps to Vandoorne.

𓆉G-Drive Racing continued to lead the way in LMP2 as Job van Uitert completed his stint, handing the #26 Aurus 01 Gibson over to Roman Rusinov through the morning. The #36 Signatech Alpine entry sits second in class ahead of Jackie Chan DC Racing's #38 Or൩eca.

Porsche moved into the lead of GTE-Pro with its #93 Porsche 911 RSR after an impressive morning stint from Patrick Pilet, getting the jump on Daniel Serra iܫn AF Corse's #51 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo. However, Corvettꦺe's Mike Rockenfeller headed the field at the 18-hour mark thanks to an off-cycle strategy.

Ben Keating completed a mammoth s꧒tint in the #85 Ford GT to keep his eponymous team at the head of the GTE-Am field, handing the Keating Motorsports entry over to Jeroen Bleekemolen towards the end of the 18th hour.