only when the Stutz team protested the blocking tactics to the officials that Bentley signalled to Barnato to pull over. However, another short shower affected the Stutz's handling, letting Barnato pull away. Samuelson had been driving his Lagonda wildly. Ignoring team orders to slow down his luck ran out when he went off at Mulsanne corner and planted the car in the sandbank. He was reversing out when he was struck, ironically, by his teammate d’Erlanger, making up time after his delay at the start. The impact pushed Samuelson's car back through the sandbank and into the wooden fence beyond. It took him two hours to dig it out, whereupon he found the gearbox casing was cracked. Furious and bruised, d’Erlanger made it back to the pits where the front brakes and shock absorbers had to be disengaged to continue on. Shortly before 7pm, the cars started coming in for their first fuel stops and driver changes. But on his due in-lap, Birkin did not arrive. Barnato reported to the team that he had seen Birkin marooned at Mulsanne corner with a puncture. The rubber had wrapped itself around the axle. After 90 minutes of cutting he got the tyre off and tried to drive back on the rim. He got as far as Arnage until the rim collapsed, pushing him off into the roadside ditch. Unable to move the car with just a single jack he ran the 5km back to the pits. Co-driver Chassagne smuggled a second jack out and ran back to take over the repair. He got going eventually but they had lost three hours in the process. The Alvis team had planned on running 22-laps shifts but were concerned when their cars began sputtering on 19 laps because of their fuel-tank shape. They were both lucky to make it to the 20-lap minimum, forcing a change in the race-strategy. Bertelli had just taken over his Aston Martin when he had to take to the verge to overtake a slower car blocking him. But he hit a deep ditch wrecking his suspension. Benjafield inherited the lead but it would not last long, as he fell back with an oil-leak in the engine, dropping him to fourth. This left Rubin and Bloch dicing for the lead. After a thrilling hour of close racing it was Bloch, in the Stutz, who was in the lead as night fell.