Release n°9 - Sunday 0h00 - 2h00

Threat of rain !

The Toyotas continued to boot it to make up lost ground while Porsche mainatined a steady pace and just after 1h00 no. 26 took over the lead from no.25. Around 01h20 the rain began to fall and Raphanel was the first to shod rain tyres but hardly had the LMP 1 Porsche left the pits than it lost a wheel! It took the Frenchman 17 minutes to get back to his pit where repairs were carried out losing him 5 mn 34 secs and dropping the car down to eighth place 8 laps behind the leader. The rain then stopped and Raphanel had to come back in again to shod slicks. The 911 GT1 Porsches also had to stop to put on slicks while Nissan chose intermediates. In the Courage camp Jean-Philippe Belloc pitted but was sent back out immediately as the decision to keep slicks by Toyota and Courage was the right one. No. 13 was well in the lead in the prototype category and threatening the no.30 Nissan for third place while the no.29 Toyota was making a strong comeback. Further down the classification the O'Rourke McLaren was in a good ninth place.

The first drops of rain proved fatal to, the no.33 Nissan which damaged its left flank in an accident and fell down the classification. Bouillon-Sospiri-Policand were setting a fast pace in their Ferrari and found themselves in 7th place, while the 333 SP driven by Theys had been delayed by bodywork damage.
The no.15 Courage had to have a pignon changed in the gearbox.

In GT2, the Roock Racing Porsche of Hurtgen-Nearn-Ligonnet stopped just after midnight to have the drive shafts changed and lost 4 laps to, the Bell-Donahue-Drudi Chrysler Viper, the category leader. Problems too for the second Roock Porsche which came in slowly after a shunt that damaged the front left-hand corner. Shirle-Warnock-Ahrl‚ lost 45 minutes.

At half-distance there were 11 retirements and the number of laps covered by the leader was the same as in 1997, rain having slowed the cars.