Audi trio take control in Le Mans

The Champion Audi shared by JJ Lehto, Marco Werner and Tom Kristensen took advantage of several incidents and a safety car to take charge of the Le Mans 24 Hours after four hours.

The Pescarolo of Emmanuel Collard, Jean-Christophe Boullion and Erik Comas, which had been leading the race, was forced to pit with a gearbox problem handing the second Champion Audi of Allan McNish, Emanuele Pirro and Frank Biela the top spot.

But disaster struck for the number two Audi when following the restart after several laps under the safety car, Pirro went straight on at a corner and into the barrier, handing the lead to his team-mates as the car had to be brought into the pits to undergo some work.

The Audi did however recover and returned with McNish in charge to be in fourth spot.

Earlier in the evening the Pescarolo car of Sebastien Loeb, Eric Helary and Soheil Ayari slipped down the order from second after it picked up damage following a nudge.

Ayari was behind the wheel when after around an hour and three quarters of racing he tapped the GT2 class Panoz Elan car.

The damage forced the Pescarolo into the pit lane for repairs as Ayari lost four minutes and re-entered the field down in seventh position before the car picked up a puncture to be down in ninth place after four hours of action.

Aston Martin also suffered their fare share of woe in the GT1 class after they were handed two stop-go penalties.

Darren Turner was the man behind the wheel as he was penalised twice after firstly hitting a cone before he went over a gravel trap.

The second Aston Martin co-driven by Pedro Lamy, Peter Kox and Tomas Enge had the lead of the class after four hours.

The Oreca Audi of Franck Montagny, Stephane Ortelli and Jean Marc Gounon occupied second place overall with the Creation team slipping down the standings after they had a water leak and spent considerable time in the garage.