After 16 years away from the blue riband of endurance racing, it was a New Zealander who piloted Porsche back into the lead of the greatest 24-hour race in the world.
After 45 laps of the 2014 Le Mans 2 Hours, Kiwi Brendon Hartley took over the lead from the Toyota of Stephane Sarrazin and quietly went about consolidating his buffer.
The second new Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 car suffered a mechanical issue early on and dropped to 10th.
The race came alive early on in the piece when a sudden downpour caught the cars and drivers out, who were all on slicks. In the challenging conditions the LMP1 Audi of Marco Bonanomi and the LMP1 of Toyota of Nicolas Lapierre had an altercation with the barrier taking both cars out.
The accident came about when Lapierre suddenly found himself amidst a bunch of much slower cars on a very wet part of the track. He appeared to loose control and pinged off into the barrier clipping Bonanomi on the way.
