Le Mans opened into the evening with Toyota Racing's #8 car leading, Sebastien Buemi having pulled clear after an opening-hour undercut and a triple stint that pushed the advantage to nearly half a minute, the gap remaining around the 30 seconds mark.
Brendon Hartley continued Buemi's work into the third hour, but the Hypercar order evolved through the fourth hour when Jack Aitken in Jota's #38 Cadillac moved past Sheldon van der Linde's #20 BMW at the second Mulsanne chicane, only for the BMW to regain position during the final pitstop before the hour.
All three Cadillacs behind the leader were affected by the timing of a virtual safety car early in the fourth hour, forcing emergency stops and later full service, and the two Jota entries plus the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac remain under investigation for that emergency stop.
The early evening running placed the #35 Alpine A424 driven by Charles Milesi high in the order while the #50 Ferrari 499P, driven by Antonio Fuoco, suffered a spin but remained in the top group, and the #51 Ferrari dropped after Alessandro Pier Guidi received a drive-through penalty for a collision with Jonas Reid's #9 Proton LMP2 car.
In LMP2 the Duqueine-run #30 Oreca climbed to the lead when Richard Verschoor began his stint as the gold-rated driver and extended a comfortable gap before handing the car to Doriane Pin, while Bijoy Garg put the #343 Inter Europol car second aided by a fuel window that allowed a longer stint.
Manthey moved into LMGT3 first with Ayhancan Guven in the #91 Porsche using an offset strategy to build a gap over the #87 Akkodis ASP Lexus, and the #92 Porsche lost three laps early after a broken tie rod cost time.
Nighttime Developments And Halfway Standings
By the halfway point Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA had taken the lead overall with the #12 Cadillac V-Series.R of Louis Delétraz, Will Stevens and Norman Nato on 192 laps, reported as leading by 15.360 seconds over BMW M Team WRT's #20 car and by 20.725 seconds over Toyota's #8.
Race neutralisation occurred for 45 minutes shortly after midnight following an off-track incident that forced the retirement of the #54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo, and when the race resumed the three Cadillacs were on soft tyres while Toyota stayed on mediums, a divergence that reshaped the night battle.
At 01:33 Brendon Hartley made a small error at Mulsanne, which erased Toyota's lead and let the #12 Cadillac close to four-tenths of a second, and BMW later put soft tyres on the #20 after testing the compound on the sister #15 car.
Ferrari-AF Corse's #50 suffered a fire extinguisher fault at 00:25 and stayed sidelined for 28 minutes before returning at 00:53, rejoining 23rd and eight laps down, while Robert Kubica said the #83 Ferrari had good pace but lost time on straights due to acceleration issues.
Genesis Magma Racing's #17 and #19 cars showed promising reliability in their Le Mans debut, though the #19 stopped between Arnage and Indianapolis at 3:25 and restarted after radio instructions, losing about ten minutes, and Algarve Pro Racing's #25 left the track at Arnage at 3:16.
