At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the Cadillac hypercars crashed early on, leaving Toyota ahead of Ferrari in the opening hour.
At the end of the first hour of action at the Sarthe circuit, interrupted by the safety car due to a crash during the action, it was Sebastian who held the advantage over James Calado’s #51 Ferrari.・It was Buemi’s #8 Toyota GR010 hybrid. Cadillac in Express Racing.
Jack Aitken appears to have simply lost control of the #311 V-Series.R in row 3 exiting the first chicane, sustaining significant front left damage, but wrests the car back to the pits. I was able to do it.
The two Toyotas in front, Buemi and Mike Conway, both on softer Michelins compared to the mediums fitted to their Ferraris, moved past Calado’s Ferrari to take 2nd and 3rd. He surfaced and Buemi immediately challenged him. #50 499P of pole position Niklas Nielsen took the lead.
Buemi passed Nielsen just before Indianapolis on the opening lap, but Aitken’s crash forced the race to stop.
A first-ever dropback procedure was carried out, giving numerous LMP2 and GTE Am runners, as well as customer Jota Porsche 963s, all the opportunity to make early pit stops.
When racing resumed, Buemi quickly pulled away from Nielsen despite complaining he was struggling to recover his brakes under the safety car, with Conway once again placing the Danish driver second at Indianapolis. I was able to put it on.
However, Conway in the No. 7 Toyota suffered front tire wear and was soon under pressure from both Ferraris, with Nielsen comfortably back in second heading into the Mulsanne corner after 53 minutes.
Nielsen dove into the pits at the end of that lap for the first stop, temporarily putting Conway back in second place, but was passed by Calado’s sister Ferrari at the first chicane.
At the end of the first hour, Buemi was 4.6 seconds ahead of Calado, with Conway a further 1.4 seconds behind in third.
Felipe Nasr finished fourth among the Porsches, but the Brazilian received a caution after colliding with Buemi’s Toyota at the first corner.
Team-mates Lawrence Vanthoor and Michael Christensen in the Cadillac and Peugeot 9×8 pair of Earl Bamber driven by Chip Ganassi, with Paul di Resta leading Nico Muller in 5th and 6th ran.
Car #708, one of the two Glickenhaus 007 LMHs, suffered an oil leak before the start of the race and fell an early lap.
In LMP2, Poleman Paul Lou Shatin held on to the lead in his IDEC Sport ORECA.
Robert Kubica moved up from 3rd to 2nd in the WRT’s best car, while Les Chad de Jeras was temporarily 3rd in his COOL Racing entry and pitted just before the end of the hour.
This moved Pietro Fittipaldi, who had started second in the Jota Oreca, to third.
Daniil Kvyat’s #63 Prema held onto second place at the Safety Car restart, but fell back after being called into the pits to have its taillights repaired.
In the GTE, pole-winning Corvette racing car of Nicky Catsburg was one of the majority of cars to pit under the safety car.
Among the cars that escaped was Davide Rigon’s #54 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE, which held the advantage over Matteo Cairoli’s AO Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 at 1 hour. .
The Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 NASCAR Cup car started by Mike Rockenfeller held off the entire GTE Am field to run 35th overall.
