The gap started to come down however as Minassian pushed, while Kristensen lost some time when he was baulked behind the GT1 Lamborghini while making his way through traffic.
Although the gap came down to under 2mins 30secs, Minassian wasn't taking enough time out of the Audi to take the win and on his final stop, the team put the car onto full wets with the chances of victory having seemingly passed. That wasn't the end of the drama for the car however as on his out lap, Minassian was clearly struggling – with the rear of the car clearly not keen to go in the same direction as the front.
Minassian nursed the car back to the pits to make another change as Kristensen himself pitted for the final time having put a lap on the Peugeot and although the Frenchman unlapped himself on the final tour as Kristensen slowed on the run to the flag, it was the Dane who took the flag as the 24 hours ticked down to give the R10 another La Sarthe win.
Had it not been for extra time spent in the pits during the race, Peugeot may well have been able to celebrate victory, but second for Minassian, Gene and Pedro Lamy was still a fine result while the #9 Peugeot of Franck Montagny, Christian Klien and Ricardo Zonta ensured there would be two 908s on the podium at the finish.
Audi's young guns Alex Premat, Mike Rockenfeller and Lucas Luhr were unable to match the pace of the front-runners and had to settle for fourth place ahead of the third of the Peugeots, which seemed to suffer the majority of problems to befall the team en-route to fifth place – the one consolation being the quickest lap of the race for pole-man Stephane Sarrazin.
The #1 Audi of Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro and Marco Werner finished in sixth place, losing time on Sunday morning with a clutch issue but, like the #3 car, being unable to challenge the pace of the front-runners through the race itself.
