The BMW Team WRT entry was running inside the top 10 at the time of the incident.
Just shy of halfway, after 11 hours and 52 minutes, Timur Boguslavskiy brought the car into the pit lane where the front end was pulled apart.
Boguslavskiy got out of the car and was seen gesticulating with members of his team. The car lay idle in the pit lane as it was disassembled, losing more than 80 minutes to the leaders.
Eventually, the #31 left the pits after extensive repairs but only completed one lap before parking up again.
It was the second devastating moment for BMW Team WRT in the space of an hour after the sister #46 BMW M4 of Valentino Rossi, Kelvin van der Linde, and Ahmad Al Harthy suffered a technical failure that caused that car to lose power.
At the halfway mark, Porsche led outright with the #6 963 driven by Australian Campbell with Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor ahead of the #8 Toyota GR010 and the #83 Ferrari 499P.
Australia’s other interest in LMGT3 remains in contention. The Iron Lynx #61 Mercedes-AMG of Martin Berry sits one lap down and 14th in class.
The sister #63 car of Stephen Grove and Brenton Grove is four laps down in 20th.
Just a few seconds separated the top three after a Safety Car intervention just before the halfway mark for the #24 Nielsen Racing Oreca in the LMP2 class.
Shortly after the restart, the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac retired with a terminal engine failure on the Mulsanne Straight.
Felipe Albuquerque pulled the #101 V-Series.R to the side of the road where it was retired.
RESULTS: 24 Hours of Le Mans: Hour 12
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