Le Mans 24 Hours, Hour 12: #6 Porsche leads as first safety car shakes up order

Porsche heads a shaken up order in the 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours at the halfway stage, with the #6 PPM 963 in the hands of Laurens Vanthoor leading after a battle against Ferrari.

At the start of the seventh hour, the customer #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P with Yifei Ye jumped into the lead after the pit cycle, with the factory Ferraris in close company, initially stretching away from the #6 Porsche.

But Ferrari’s control was loosened when the #50 499P was given a drive-through penalty for a yellow flag infringement, while the #6 Porsche driven by Kevin Estre targeted a fuel economy strategy to save a pitstop over the Ferraris.

As the race ticked over the eighth hour, Ferrari team orders were issued with the #83 now driven by Phil Hanson asked to give the lead to the #51 factory Ferrari driven by James Calado.

While the swap wasn’t instantly forthcoming, with the gap at 2s, Hanson ran off-track at Mulsanne corner to effectively hand the lead to Calado.

However, with both factory Ferraris picking up a string of penalties for pitlane-related infringements, it opened the door to the #6 Porsche to fight for the lead against the #83 AF Corse Ferrari.

But the race’s first genuine strategy shake-up struck when LMP2 racer Cem Bolukbasi crashed heavily at Tertre Rouge in the #24 Nielsen Racing ORECA-Gibson 07 shortly after 11 hours of running, which caused the first safety car of the race.

The majority of teams opted to pit under the safety car, which mixed up the running order during a 40-minute delay.

#83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye, Philip Hanson

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

With the race returning to green flag conditions just before the midway point of the 24 hours, the #6 Porsche led from the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID driven by Ryo Hirakawa by a handful of seconds, with Ye’s #83 AF Corse Ferrari in third.

The #15 BMW driven by Raffaele Marciello profited from the safety car period to jump to fourth ahead of the #51 and #50 Ferraris, with the polesitting #12 Jota Cadillac in seventh ahead of the #5 Porsche, #38 Jota Cadillac and #4 Porsche which rounded out the top 10.

Shortly after the resumption, an apparent engine failure caused the #101 WTR Cadillac with Filipe Albuquerque at the wheel to stop out on circuit and become the first Hypercar retirement.

In LMP2, the #48 VDS Panis ORCA-Gibson 07 driven by Oliver Gray heads the class as its battle with #9 Iron Lynx – Proton and #43 Inter Europol Competition was uninterrupted by the safety car period. Six cars were on the lead lap at the halfway point.

While in LMGT3, the #46 WRT BMW had been a strong contender over the opening 10-and-a-half hours, leading for large periods while getting through its bronze driver time with Ahmad Al Harthy, but a suspected electrical issue with Kelvin van der Linde at the wheel forced the South African to stop at the Porsche Curves.

Van der Linde was able to get the car fired up again to make it back to the pits, but his return was short-lived as he pitted again for a terminal stoppage for a technical issue that shut down power on the BMW M4 LMGT3.

As a result, the #92 Manthey 1ST Phorm Porsche squad was released into the class lead with Riccardo Pera at the wheel at the halfway point, holding a 30s lead over the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus driven by Finn Gehrsitz.