The #38 Jota Porsche 963 was comfortably leading the race when Yifei Ye went too wide at the Porsche Curves, hitting the tyre barriers side-on.
While the impact was relatively small, it stripped off the entire rear bodywork of the Porsche, exposing its entire V8 twin-turbo engine.
Yifei was able to bring the car he shares with Antonio Felix da Costa and Will Stevens back into the pits was repair, but it handed the lead of the race to the #51 Ferrari of Antonio Giovinazzi, with Miguel Molina running second in the sister #50 499P entry.
The #5 Porsche of Dane Cameron that had earlier got up to back of the Jota lost positions to the two Ferraris in separate off-track excurcions, before being hit with a drive-through penalty for overtaking the Walkenhorst Ferrari GTE under the safety car.
Source: Autosport