Photo: Jacques Letihon Photographe

Hour 9 Update: Renault extends lead as Volvo penalised

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With three hours to go, Frédéric Bouvy’s Renault leads as the Volvo’s Rob Huff falls a lap behind, as he receives a penalty for overtaking under the safety car.

Technical problems have also befell the two Kia’s, that were 4th and 5th at half distance. The No.17 car is now in 17th place, 21 laps down – the No.7 is 20 laps down.

Then, as night fell, more incidents caused more safety cars – and Rob Huff took the lead over the Renault as it had come in to change drivers.

The Volvo team was then ordered to fall back behind the safety car, as Huff was then driving around the lap to catch the field. It was reportedly the case that Rob had driven past the safety car, an opinion denied by the team.

At the restart, Bouvy quickly passed the Volvo, and set the fastest lap of the race. Then the Volvo was ordered to serve a drive through penalty for overtaking the safety car.

The Volvo team took their scheduled pitstop, and Rob stayed in to double stint – then a few laps later served his drive through.

The Delehaye Racing Renault now has a comfortable lead of one lap over the Volvo team, with the KS Motorsport BMW of Steve Vanbellingen still threatening in third. The GT class BMW M3, currently driven by Andrew Belicchi has now moved up to fourth.