The start of the 73rd Le Mans 24 Hours was hot and fast!  Oliver Gavin took the first stint in the #64 Compuware Corvette C6.R and maintained his position just behind the two Aston Martin DBR9s that started just in front of him.  The first major incident in the forthcoming GT1 battle followed soon afterwards when Darren Turner in the lead #59 Aston received a stop and go penalty for hitting cones on one of the chicanes.

The result was Oliver moving up to second in GT1, right behind the #58 Aston as the pair came in to the pits for their first scheduled stop.  Oliver took on fuel but no tyres and came out ahead of the Aston to take the class lead.

25 minutes later it was the turn of the #64 car to have 'an incident' when Oliver sustained a puncture in the left rear tyre.  He had to bring the car at slow speed back to the pits from over half way round the circuit and lost substantial time.  But, the #59 Aston also had a second penalty for the same offence and a three minute penalty dropped them down to fourth.  The net effect was that the #64 Corvette rejoined third in class with Olivier Beretta behind the wheel, chasing their team mates in the #63 car.

The #59 Aston also suffered from a broken front splitter which lost them further time and now Jan Magnussen has consolidated the third position in class, running 12th overall.

Current GT1 positions:
1. #58 Aston Martin (Pedro Lamy) 72 laps
2. #63 Corvette (Max Papis) 71 laps
3. #64 Corvette (Jan Magnussen) 71 laps
4. #59 Aston Martin (David Brabham) 69 laps

We'll bring more later .................