JOEST STILL IN THE HUNT

 The duel between the works Porsches and the Joest racing entry went on in the early hours of the morning. It was a repeat of the 1996 race and even if the works cars seemed to have the upper hand the TWR was not about to give up easily. Around midnight the factory cars changed their brake pads which allowed the Joest of Alboreto-Johansson-Kristensen back into second place. some 20 seconds behind the no.25 Porsche. Refuelling enabled no.26 to get the better of no.7 which however, managed to stay on the same lap as the GT1s, themselves separated by only 12 seconds as the tenth hour struck.

 A lap behind came the 2 Gulf McLarens followed by the BMW Motorsport entry. The quickest of the private Porsches was in 7th place driven by Patrice Gouselard from Caen Pedro Lamy and Armin Hahne closely followed by the Ferté-Thévenin-Von Gartzen entry.
There was disarray in the Nissan camp and the Hoshino-Comas-Kageyama car had to have its gearbox changed in spite of which it remained the best-placed of the Japanese cars,at 02h00.

 The La Filière Courage was still having road-holding problems and Pescarolo again went off in Tertre Rouge. Their "Vaillante" entry was suffering from electronics but it managed to rejoin the race. The no.5 Kremer went out with a blown engine. The Lister Storm GTL also joined the list of retirements (gearbox) and the GT2 Porsche of Calderari-Bryner-Zadra (engine). At 1 h50 just as the Stuck-Boutsen-Wollek car broke the 2000 km barrier the 911 GT1 driven by Mauro Baldi went off in the Porsche corners and then Patrick Bourdaais crashed in the Karting section and the Larbre Competition mechanics tried to repair the rear suspension. In the GT2 category the Beretta-Gache-Dupuy Viper had a 6 lap lead over the Mello-Breyner family Porsche followed by the Neugarten-Lagniez-Martinolle 911 GT2.