Team Oreca Matmut AIM was however very quick repairing the car as only 6 minutes later the #10 Oreca was back on the track as if it were a new car, with Bruno Senna now behind the wheel.
At the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight Nick Leventis nearly clipped the tyre walls, but managed to miss everything. It looked as if something fell off the car though.
Meanwhile a battle for the lead in GT2 got underway with the #80 Flying Lizard Porsche closing in on the #76 IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche. Both cars are 100% race win contenders, especially after the #77 Felbermayr Proton Porsche was officially retired.
Not much happened in the remainder of the third hour and as the clock showed 6 pm the #8 Peugeot was still leading ahead of its sister car the #9. Third overall was the #1 Audi R15 TDI.
The top three cars all pit in the first ten minutes of the fourth hour. Montagny hands over to Stephane Sarrazin, Wurz to David Brabham, and McNish to Dindo Capello. For the first quarter of the fourth hour not much happened though until Miguel Amaral parked his car at Arnage, just inches away from the tyre wall.
Some more minutes later Plamen Kralev in the Endurance Asia Team Porsche 997 GT3 RSR suddenly slowed on the Mulsanne Straight. Kralev stopped at the right side of the straight. The car seemed to get going for a split second, suggesting a gear problem.
After gone missing for almost an entire hour the #66 Jetalliance Racing Aston Martin DBR9 returned to the pit towards the end of the third hour, but even before the halfway point of the fourth hour Thomas Gruber put it into the gravel at the first Mulsanne chicane.
Amaral hit more trouble when he went into the gravel trap at the very same chicane. The car needed to be pulled out and then had to start its (slow) way back to the pit where it went straight into the box for repairs on bodywork damage.
With some 10 minutes to go the #009, the Aston Martin Racing Lola Aston that already had a bad weekend so far is in the box with mechanics working hard on the car. At the front of the GT2 class Bergmeister handed over the car to Seth Neiman. The Porsche immediately dropped down the order.
With three minutes to go Marco Werner’s R15 had its nose replaced, something that apparently also happened on at least one of the other Audi’s.
And right at the end of the fourth hour the Signature Plus Courage-Oreca LC70 came to a stop on the pit straight. After a couple of seconds Didier André managed to restart the car and the Courage fortunately got away before the safety car was deployed.
The top six after 4 hours is Peugeot #8, Audi #2, Peugeot #9 and Audi #1.
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