diff --git a/auditor/fixtures/hybrid_38_40_45.ts b/auditor/fixtures/hybrid_38_40_45.ts
index 8e3ed16..f8472b9 100644
--- a/auditor/fixtures/hybrid_38_40_45.ts
+++ b/auditor/fixtures/hybrid_38_40_45.ts
@@ -102,6 +102,15 @@ export async function runHybridFixture(): Promise<FixtureResult> {
   // ========================================================================
   // Layer 1 — Phase 38: POST /v1/chat returns valid OpenAI shape
   // ========================================================================
+  // Captured HERE, immediately before the chat layer runs, so layer 2's
+  // Langfuse-trace filter uses the actual moment the chat call was
+  // attempted — not the fixture start time. Earlier draft had a
+  // meaningless ternary returning result.ran_at on both branches; the
+  // LLM-Team codereview (2026-04-22) caught this and flagged it as a
+  // false-negative window on traces created between fixture-start and
+  // chat-fetch.
+  const chat_request_sent_ms = Date.now();
+
   const l1 = await measureLayer("phase38_chat", "38", async () => {
     const r = await fetch(`${GATEWAY}/v1/chat`, {
       method: "POST",
@@ -150,11 +159,13 @@ export async function runHybridFixture(): Promise<FixtureResult> {
     if (!r.ok) throw new Error(`langfuse ${r.status}: ${await r.text()}`);
     const j: any = await r.json();
     const items = Array.isArray(j.data) ? j.data : [];
-    // Find a trace newer than our l1 start timestamp.
-    const ourStart = Date.parse(l1.evidence.match(/tokens=/) ? result.ran_at : result.ran_at);
-    const recent = items.filter((t: any) => Date.parse(t.timestamp) >= ourStart);
+    // Filter on the chat-request timestamp captured above. A Langfuse
+    // trace must be newer than the moment we fired /v1/chat to plausibly
+    // belong to our request. Using fixture start time (result.ran_at)
+    // was wrong and could false-negative on slow fixtures.
+    const recent = items.filter((t: any) => Date.parse(t.timestamp) >= chat_request_sent_ms);
     if (recent.length === 0) {
-      throw new Error(`no v1.chat:ollama trace since ${new Date(ourStart).toISOString()} (${items.length} older traces visible, Langfuse reachable — tracing is not firing)`);
+      throw new Error(`no v1.chat:ollama trace since ${new Date(chat_request_sent_ms).toISOString()} (${items.length} older traces visible, Langfuse reachable — tracing is not firing)`);
     }
     const trace = recent[0];
     return {