Corvette Racing’s No. 64 C8.R was battling the #51 Ferrari for the class lead in GTE Pro when it was hit by the #83 AF Corse LMP2 on the Mulsanne straight.
The side by side contact sent Alexander Sims into the barrier, spinning the car around and coming to rest against it. Sims was able to exit the car and thankfully he is fine.
The no. 63 Corvette had just been retired prior to the crash due to “significant mechanical damage” so our race for the year is done.
Our Le Mans is over. We had just retired the 63 when the 64 was involved in an incident that has ended its race. Gutted

To his credit, Francois Perrodo went directly to Corvette Racing and apologized for causing the crash. Race organizers gave Perrodo and the #83 a 3 minute stop and go penalty as well as 2 penalty points for causing a collision with Sims.

Francois Perrodo has gone over to the Corvette garage to apologize to the team.

We are three quarters into the race and the GTE Pro class continues to make headlines, with more drama in the battle for the win during Hour 18.

Corvette Racing’s chances of winning GTE Pro in its final year came to an abrupt end in the final minutes of the hour, when AF Corse LMP2 driver Francois Perrodo made contact with the No. 64 Pro-leading C8.R of Alex Sims. Perrodo hadn’t cleared the C8.R when he was running side-by-side with another LMP2 runner down the Mulsanne Straight. He moved over on Sims, the Briton sent veering off into the Armco after the contact.

It was a heavy impact that caused a retirement on the spot for Corvette.

To make matters worse, it came just moments after the team announced the retirement of the long-delayed No. 63 sister car.
Sims's incident followed hot on the heels of the American marque announcing the retirement of its #63 entry shared by Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor and Nicky Catsburg.

The #63 car had been leading in the early part of the race, but lost considerable time with a left-rear suspension failure that sent the car into the garage for lengthy repairs.

Further time was then lost with checks to inspect a vibration and a subsequent diffuser change, before the decision was made to pull the car from the race due to what the team called "significant mechanical damage, seen and unseen at the rear of the car."