Lopez leads Le Mans at halfway, Alonso closing

Jose Maria Lopez leads for Toyota at the halfway mark in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but is coming under increasing pressure from Fernando Alonso as the #8 car crew fights back from an earlier penalty.

After both Toyotas ran close together through the opening third of the race, the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid was pegged back after Sebastien Buemi was deemed to have speeded in the pit lane, resulting in a stop/go penalty.

The sanction left Buemi more than two minutes behind Mike Conway at the front of the pack before handing over to two-time Formula 1 world champion Alonso, who soon began to mark inroads at the front of the field.

Conway handed over to Lopez for the next stint of the race, while Alonso continued after taking over from Buemi, whittling the gap down to less than 90 seconds at the head of the pack.

Toyota's advantage over the non-hybrid LMP1 privateers stands at four laps, with the pair of Rebellion Racing entries sitting third and fourth respectively after benefitting from issues for the DragonSpeed, SMP Racing and Manor-entered cars.

The issues for many of the LMP1 runners has allowed G-Drive Racing to rise up to fifth overall in the race as its #26 Oreca 07 Gibson continues to lead the LMP2 class, enjoying a one-lap buffer over the #23 Panis Barthez Competition entry.

Porsche continues to lead the way in GTE-Pro with its #92 Porsche 911 RSR - dubbed the 'pink pig' - running around two minutes clear of the sister #91 Porsche, which managed to overhaul the #68 Ford GT at the latest round of pit stops, demoting it to third in class.

In GTE-Am, Dempsey-Proton Racing has a 90-second advantage over the #85 Keating Motorsport entry, with the JMW Motorsport Ferrari 488 GTE sitting third in class heading into the second half of the race.