Le Mans 24 hours

19.30 - 21.45

19.45 - Kimber-Smith is the fastest GT2 runner – and has been for about 7 laps. The 21 year old is closing in on his leaders. He just took out 8 secs of #93’s lead, and lapping around 5 secs a lap faster than fellow British GT runner Chris Niarchos in his Ferrari 430.

The Multimatic Panoz guys in the garage next to Team LNT’s are out ready for their car to come in. The re-fuller is ready, but a message has appeared on the screen saying their car has stopped on track. Has it run out of fuel?

19.52hrs and the #85 Spyker has also stopped on track due to a water leak. Kimber-Smith is up to 6th.

20.00 – Kimber-Smith does his fastest lap of 4.13.581. That’s quicker than all of the other GT2 cars except #83 ahead of him.

Chris Niarchos in the #87 Ferrari has just had a trip into the gravel having just done his own fastest lap of 4.16.161. He recovers, but behind the Team LNT Panoz. The American car is also only 19 seconds behind 4th place #90 and is lapping 5-6 seconds quicker. 4th should be Tom’s in a few laps…

Well, a bit sooner than expected actually. The #90 Porsche has pitted.

Approaching the 8.30pm mark, Kimber-Smith comes into the pits for another driver changeover. Richard Dean gets back in to rejoin in 5th place.

GT2 classification at 20.34 = 1st #76, 2nd #86, 3rd 83, 4th #90, 5th 81, 6th 87, 7th # 80…

Dean runs a futher 16 laps; 10 of which are in the 4 minute 12’s. The car’s fastest laps yet.

At the driver changeover an hour down the line, Tomlinson takes over. Dean looking rather hot…

“It was 42 degrees [celcius] in that car and my new cool suit had an air lock in it so it didn’t work!” Dean told us afterwards. The cool suit is a ‘vest’ with some tubes sewn onto it that cold water is pumped around to keep the driver’s body temperature down…

 The Team owner runs well in the 4.16’s – his personal best laps.