The British team, which has three LMP2 wins at La Sarthe under its belt, led the centenary running of Le Mans at one stage with its new 963, which had only made its World Endurance Championship debut in the previous race at Spa.
That was until Yifei Ye, who shared the Hertz-sponsored #38 car with Antonio Felix da Costa and Will Stevens, suffered a crash at the Porsche Curves while he was pulling away from the #5 works Penske-run 963 of Dane Cameron.
