Alex Wurz remains in the lead at Le Mans as the race passed its seventh hour following another dramatic 60 minutes that saw the #2 Audi crash out of third place at the Porsche Curves.
As the #9 Peugeot continued serenely on, having inherited the lead from the #8 car - which pitted in the previous hour with a loose rear-left disc-bell, 1m36s ahead of the #1 Audi driven by Tom Kristensen -- all hell broke loose behind.
Lucas Luhr appeared to suffer a failure of some kind at the rear of the car on the entry to the Porsche Curves and spun backwards into the barriers, utterly breaking the rear of the R15 TDI.
This promoted Sebastien Bourdais's #8 Peugeot back up to third, as the French Formula 1 driver lit up the track with a sequence of fast laps. But when he pitted for fuel, Anthony Davidson took the position back for Aston Martin.
That was short-lived, however, as Benoit Treluyer in the Pescarolo Peugeot overtook the Briton on the Mulsanne straight. Just before the turn of the hour, though, both cars had pitted, Davidson alighting in favor of Darren Turner, and Treluyer stopping for fuel.
When all had shaken out, the order was Wurz, one lap ahead of Kristensen's Audi, Bourdais a lap further back from Bourdais and Turner. Jan Charouz is sixth in the second Aston Martin Lola.
Emmanuel Collard moved back into the lead of the LMP2 class after the Team Goh driver Keisuke Kunimoto pitted to swap over to Sacha Maassen. The Porsche's are currently split by 30s.
Jan Magnussen has a lap advantage over his Corvette teammate Oliver Gavin at the front of the GT1 class. Patrice Gouselard crashed out of fourth place in class after going head-on heavily into the tyre wall.
The Risi Ferrari of Jaime Melo still leads GT2 by nearly two minutes from Patrick Long in the Imsa Porsche 911 GT3 RSR.
Tim Sugden is third after Gianmaria Bruni was forced to take a long stop in the #97 Ferrari.