Le Mans 24 Hours: Alonso catching Lopez at 12-hour mark

Alonso continued where he left off against Mike Conway in the 11th hour and took further chunks of time out of Lopez as the race reached the halfway stage.

That meant Alonso has played a key part in recovering the time lost by team-mate Sebastien's Buemi's stop-go penalty that had left the #8 Toyota 2m10s off the race-leading #7.

Alonso is now just 1m16.246s off leader Lopez.

Rebellion Racing's R-13s continued third and fourth in the hands of Mathias Beche and Bruno Senna.

DragonSpeed's Renger Van der Zande took over the BR1 machine and is lapping almost 10s quicker than the LMP2 drivers he is attempting to clear in 22nd overall and fifth in class.

Leo Roussel has the #5 Manor-Ginetta sixth in class but down in 49th overall, and the team retired the #6 car after Oliver Rowland's earlier stoppage on track could not be fixed.

That means Vitaly Petrov is now seventh in class aboard the #11 SMP Racing BR1.

G-Drive still in charge

Roman Rusinov has retained his one-lap advantage in the #26 G-Drive ORECA at half distance in LMP2.

As the top of the hour approached, all the action was behind the Russian, who last pitted on lap 181, as two-time class winner Nicolas Lapierre in the #36 Signatech-Alpine chased after Timothe Buret's Panis-Barthez Competition Ligier.

Lapierre pressured Buret into a mistake at Mulsanne Corner on lap 186 and got past with a better run towards Indianapolis.

Behind them, Paul-Loup Chatin staved off pressure from the #28 TDS Racing ORECA of Matthieu Vaxiviere to consolidate IDEC Sport's hold on fourth place.

Vaxiviere was in turn two minutes ahead of the #39 Graff-So24 ORECA of Tristan Gommendy, who is the first driver two laps down.

GTE Pro-leading Porsche pulling away

The GTE Pro lead enjoyed by the #92 Porsche is edging closer to two minutes with Michael Christensen replacing Kevin Estre at the wheel.

A Porsche one-two is still comfortable with Ginamaria Bruni second in the #91 car ahead of Dirk Muller's #68 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford.

Antonio Giovinazzi has handed driving duties of the #52 AF Corse Ferrari to Toni Vilander who leads the #67 and #69 Fords in fourth.

Antonio Garcia is seventh in class aboard the #63 Corvette.

Dempsey-Proton Racing's #77 Porsche driven by Julien Andlauer is still at the front of the class, but the arrival of Jeroen Bleekemolen in the #85 Keating Motorsports Ferrari has kept the gap at just over 90s.

Positions after 12 hours