At 45 mins past the eight hour, there was a clash at the second chicane between Olivier Pla in the #66 Ford GT and Sven Muller in the #94 Brumos-liveried Porsche 911 RSR as they dueled over 10th place.

Approaching the ninth hour – midnight local time – James Calado moved the AF Corse Ferrari 488 into the lead ahead of Michael Christensen before pulling into the pits for the 10th time.

Once the leaders had cycled through their 10th stop, Christensen resumed around 6sec ahead of Calado with Corvette Racing’s sole remaining #3 C7.R chased by Jonathan Bomarito (#67 Ford), Patrick Pilet (#93 Porsche), Sam Bird (#71 Ferrari), Richard Lietz’s #91 Porsche and #69 Ford GT of Richard Westbrook.

Alex Lynn had spun the 13th place #97 Aston Martin Vantage AMR just past midnight, breaking the rear wing and right-front fender, and the team were still occupied fixing that 20mins later when Marco Sorensen suffered a much bigger impact in the #95 Aston just before Indianapolis corner.

The resultant safety car period had a major impact on the race, too, with Christensen and Calado very close too each other – indeed, the Ferrari was swiftly past the Porsche – but now over 75sec clear of their chasers led by Magnussen, Pilet, Bomarito, Wesbtrook, Lietz and Joey Hand in the #68 Ford.

The 11th stops saw the #92 Porsche now driven by Laurens Vanthoor emerge just ahead of the AF Ferrari now driven by Daniel Serra and the 12th stops maintained this order, but Vanthoor went over half a minute clear of the Ferrari only until the spinning Ligier brought them back together.

Sadly that didn’t bring the chasing pack back in touch, with third and fourth places held by Fred Makowiecki and Earl Bamber in the the #91 and #93 Porsches, followed by Mike Rockenfeller in the Corvette, and then the #69, #68 and 67 Fords of Scott Dixon, Sebastien Bourdais and Andy Priaulx respectively.