Larbre Competition has moved steadily up the field at the Le Mans 24 Hours after problems early in the race cost them one hour in the pits.

As the race enters its 19th hour, the team’s Saleen S7R has run without incident during the night and early morning and currently sits in 30th position overall and 7th in the GT1 category.

The heavens opened at 4:15am to make track conditions treacherous, and steady rainfall throughout the morning has meant the circuit remains slippery leaving the drivers unable to push too hard.

Despite this, Patrick Bornhauser, David Hallyday and Christophe Bouchut have all driven error-free stints and maintain a strong pace which has seen them move ahead of the Team Modena Aston Martin DBR9 which has suffered problems in the pits.

David Hallyday: “The car is running perfectly at the moment, but the track conditions are very tricky. When I began my stint they were ok, but after 15 minutes more rain fell and things got a lot worse. All the chicanes are very slippery and so it’s difficult to judge exactly what you should do and how hard to push. Thankfully the Saleen is pretty good in the wet and doesn’t get out of shape too much, and that’s a relief in this weather.”

Christophe Bouchut: “I had no problem during my stint, but I am not pushing at all. The only target now is to bring back the car in one piece so we can finish the race. The fact is that we are going to pay the price for yesterday’s problem as the car has started to have a bad vibration and I strongly suspect a transmission problem. Whether it’s dry or wet doesn’t really matter for us as we are a long way behind everybody else in the GT1 class."