Bourdais takes lead before Petit Le Mans is red flagged

With four and a half hours still to run, Petit Le Mans was brought to a halt as the track conditions worsened, with further storms expected soon.

The fifth hour of Petit Le Mans was blighted by a yellow flag as the DeltaWing DW12C spun off in the hands of Memo Rojas, and its damage issues were exacerbated by demolishing some advertising signs at trackside.

That allowed Patrick Pilet in the GTLM Porsche 911 to clock a number of laps at the head of the field, and as the field went back to green near the top of the hour, he continued to hold off Prototype leader Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 5 Action Express Racing Chevrolet DP. However, as the rain poured down yet harder, Bourdais and Jordan Taylor moved their Corvette DPs to the top of the leaderboard.

In fourth and fifth overall, second and third in class are the Corvette C7.R pairing of Oliver Gavin and Antonio Garcia, who have made one and three more stops resprectively than their GTLM rival Pilet, which explains their half-minute deficit to the German car.

Another man to watch in the GTLM category is Jens Klingmann whose fourth placed BMW Z4 GTE is only two seconds behind Garcia. The blighted Falken Tire Porsche entry has made more unscheduled pit stops to fix a computer issue, but driver Patrick Long is now back up to speed.

Magnus Racing holds top spot in GTD in the No. 44 Porsche, while Cameron Lawrence is likely to regain second in the No. 93 Viper once his rivals' pit stop strategies shake out… if they are given the chance to do so. Given that the red flag waved past half-distance to go due to track conditions, IMSA could call the race.