Lopez leads, Alonso chasing as dawn breaks at Le Mans

Toyota continued to control proceedings in the 24 Hours of Le Mans as dawn broke through the 15th hour, with Jose Maria Lopez leading the way in the #7 car ahead of Fernando Alonso.

Lopez assumed duties from #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid co-driver Kamui Kobayashi for the final night stint at the Circuit de la Sarthe, holding a lead of around a minute over the sister #8 car.

While Alonso was able to put in some quick lap times to whittle the gap down to 50 seconds at one stage, Lopez hit back to re-establish the minute buffer at the front in the early part of his stint.

Rebellion Racing's #3 R13 Gibson continued in a comfortable third overall ahead of the #11 SMP Racing entry, with the two cars separated by almost two minutes at the end of Hour 15.

A fortuitous Safety Car split helped G-Drive Racing open up a big gap at the head of the field in LMP2, with Jean-Eric Vergne completing a quick third stint in the #26 Aurus Gibson before handing over to silver-rated Job van Uitert shortly before daybreak. Van Uitert holds a 90-second lead over race-long rival Nicolas Lapierre in the #36 Signatech Alpine entry.

James Calado continues to lead for AF Corse in GTE-Pro behind the wheel of the #51 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, but is being chased by Richard Lietz in the #91 Porsche 911 RSR, the gap standing at less than 20 seconds.

Ben Keating holds top spot in GTE-Am in his eponymous team's #85 Ford GT, leading from Team Project 1 and TF Sport.