As the track slowly dries out, the Toyotas are looking especially at ease, with Mike Conway and Sébastien Buemi entertaining the crowds as they overtake to position the two Japanese prototypes at the front of the pack. All the favourites came in to the pits to switch to slicks but André Lotterer took a gamble by staying out. That gamble didn’t pay off, however, as a turbo problem sent his Audi R18 back to the pits for a full 20 minutes. "It’s not an issue we encountered during the tests,” points out Doctor Ullrich, head of Audi Sport. “The rain must have had something to do with it." On the flipside, Loïc Duval overtook Brendon Hartley to lead the race, giving Audi the advantage again. Not for long though, because the New Zealander moved back out in front two laps later. Mike Conway made the most of the fight going on in front of him to close in on the pair for a three-way battle between the three manufacturers – Porsche, Toyota and Audi – much to the spectators’ delight.

It is still a very open race in LM P2. At the moment, the #44 Oreca driven by Roberto Merhi is in the lead.

After a discreet qualifying session, the Porsche 911 RSRs seem at home in the tricky conditions prevalent in the early stages of the race. After two hours, Frédéric Makowiecki tops the LM GTE Pro standings.

With works drivers Patrick Long and Wolf Henzler at the wheel, the #88 and #78 Porsches lead the LM GTE Am field. In that class, the #60 Ferrari fielded by Formula Racing had a puncture.