72nd Le Mans 24 Hours - The Final Three Hours

13:10: The 66 Ferrari pits again for attention for the front left corner, the car is wheeled back intothe garage and the team remove a flapping rear wing endplate and set to work repairing the front splitter too. The Corvette is making good its escape.

Colin McRae has a quick trip into the gravel at the first Mulsanne chicane in the 65 Prodrive 550.

66 dramas: the car was worked on in the garage on two occasions - during the same pit visit. While all these delays were going on, the 64 Corvette motored off into the distance. What a turnaround in GTS.

66 was so badly delayed around 13.30 that the 63 Corvette has moved into second place.

When Tomas Enge eventually left the pits (after half an hour), he didn't get very car: he went off at Arnage, ripping the front forner off the bodywork. Enge made it back to the pits just before 14.00 - but at this rate of (lack of) progress, the 65 car might well take third in GTS.

Freisinger loses second in GT, to Choroq, and at 14.00 Ortelli and co. are stationary in the pits - no, just left the pits - with a three lap lead over the fourth placed 84 Seikel Porsche.

The gap between the first two Audis has been inching down, just 52 seconds as Davies chases Ara. It looks lie Herbert chasing Kristensen to the finish. Pirro is ten laps down in third, Ayari is fourth in the 18 Pescarolo (17 went out with engine trouble), Kaffer is fifth, Gavin sixth, Kaneishi seventh in Lammers' less gearbox troubled car, and O'Connell eighth.

Herbert does indeed get in the 88 Veloqx Audi, just after 14.00, presumably for the run to the finish. We reckon two more stops for this car. Herbert is 2mins 12s behind after that stop, and Ara has just set a 3:38.7.

RML's Lola has been retired (engine), the Taurus Lola is having a new clutch, gearbox and starter fitted, the Morgan is trundling round with overheating problems, and the more recent retirements were:

61 Ferrari 575 - brakes
62 Ferrari 575 - electronics
9 Advan Dome - oil system.

14.10: O'Connell's Corvette has been dragged into its garage, presumably for a precautionary stop, as it has five laps in hand over any challenger. Enge's Ferrari is still in its garage.

Herbert is lapping marginally faster than Ara. With a two minute gap, and the Goh car about to pit (14.13) and perhaps needing one more stop and splash, it looks like advantage Goh....

But Herbert is rushing on, taking more than 'marginally' out of Ara each successive lap, and 78 secs soon shrinks to 57 seconds, with 80 minutes left.

The 16 Dome has gone off on an out lap, with Ralph Firman at the wheel. The Seikel (surviving) Porsche, 84, has gone off at Mulsanne Corner, but gets going again.

Herbert pits with77 mins left, and will have to make another stop. Ara should switch to Kristensen (?) and has one stop to make. Or will Mr. Goh want Ara to take the flag? Or will Kristensen be at the wheel for his sixth win?

Enge has rejoined, having lost 18 laps, or an hour and ten minutes, with the two long stops.

Firman is returning without his nose, missing out the Mulsanne Chicanes: did he go off at Tertre Rouge?

Lammers finds himself right behind Ara on the track.

John Nielsen is having to proceed carefully with a troubled Lister, and off-line he is picking up a lot of rubber, which is being fired at the bodywork, which is far from ideal.

Ara will stay in for the finish: he pits at 63 minutes to go, a little sooner than we'd thought. He'll have to make a splash. The gap is now 45 seconds.

Besides Firman, the pits are also seeing long visits from the Lister, the 89 TVR and the Perspective Porsche. Hugh tells Radio Le Mans that the 89 TVR has a big vibration at the back, which is being investigated. We haven't had any Intersport news recently, but Clint's car is still going round and round, albeit rather slowly. It's still miles clear of the 24 WR.

54 minutes left and Ara leads by 40.8 seconds. Firman is dropping down the order, so for the first time in this race, the GT leader makes it into the top ten.

One lap later and the gap is 36.5 seconds, as herbert sets a 3:36.6. The Taurus Lola looks as though it is being saved for the last lap or two.

The ACO timing screen suddenly has Ara in second place with 46 mins left.... but it's an error on the screen. The gap seems to be 36.2, with Herbert due to pit within about ten minutes.

Ara again isn't registered as he crosses the line: this is frustrating.

With 35 minutes left, it looks as though Herbert has backed off a touch, lapping in 3:41.5, against Ara's 3:40.1. Goh win? Herbert pits with 32 minutes left, no new tyres taken on. Ara will pit later and shorter. Paul Truswell on Radio Le Mans reckons Ara's tyres are more worn than Herbert's.

29 mins to go and Ara stops for the last time. Quicker stop than Herbert's (less fuel needed). Herbert is pressing on..... 25 minutes and the gap is 34.6 secs. That's 372 laps completed, so six more? Herbert cannot find six seconds a lap, except that the marshals do tend to get in the way of a less committed driver sometimes....

374 laps, seventeen and a half minutes left, the gap is 29 seconds. Fortunately the R8s are more reliable than the wireless internet system here. What happens if we throw this Wifi thing at a wall, would it survive, as the R8s did?

375 laps / 13 minutes / 27.3 seconds.
376 laps / 9 and a half minutes / 27.9 seconds.

The Lister is out there to join the finishers. Herbert goes sraight on across the gravel at the second Mulsanne Chicane... which puts the Veloqx cars together for a formation finish, and Tom Kristensen will take his sixth win at Le Mans.

378 laps / 3 minutes / 31.1 seconds.

The Westward Ho Casino/ MMPIE/ PAWS/ mail2web.com/ Hella/ Justice Brothers/ BBS/ Michelin/ Premier SportsCar Services/ AVID Design, Inc./ Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RSR wins GT, Clint Field, Bill Binnie and Rick Sutherland win LMP2 for Intersport, Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta and Jan Magnussen take GTS for GM and Corvette racing, after the misfortunes that struck the Enge car, but the winners will be Seiji Ara, Dindo Capello and (five wins consecutively) Tom Kristensen, for Kazumichi Goh. Seiji Ara is the first Japanese driver to take the flag.

No one could have predicted the McNish / Lehto dramas of early yesterday evening: this has been different from the other Audi wins. It needed a Zytek with a little luck, it needed Martin Short there at the end, but it was different in many ways from the last few 24 Hours here. Sunday morning was fairly dull, but it did pick up towards the end.

Congratulations to all the finishers. Well done Tom (and get well our Tom).
Thanks to all the dsc crew, to Radio Le Mans, Eurosport, the ACO, 48 teams, the press room ladies, the Hawaiian Tropic Girls - in fact everyone here at this incredible circuit.