24 hours of Le Mans – H+1: Toyota escapes in the lead

The first hour of 24 Hours of Le Mans allowed two people Toyota TS050 Hybrid n°8 and n°7 to take off. Behind the two Japanese prototypes, from the start, a first incident involved the No. 13 Rebellion R1 of André Lotterer and the No. 1 BR10 – Dragonspeed of Ben Hanley.

Lotterer lost his front hood when braking for the Dunlop chicane, this element immediately colliding with the white BR1, sending it into a spin. The German was forced to return to the pits to change the hood of his R13 LM P1.

The two Toyota TS050 Hybrids then exchanged positions in the first minutes of the race, Conway passing quickly Buemi after the start before the Swiss regained the leadership, visibly ceded by Conway.

The first burst of stops is initiated at the end of the 8th lap by the No. 8, when the No. 7 waits until the end of the 9th to make its first pass. Conway, on the other hand, stopped 8″ further than Buemi.

At the end of the first sixty minutes, Sébastien Buemi has a lead of more than 18″ over Mike Conway. The BR1 – n°17 ​​SMP Racing of Stéphane Sarrazin is in 3rd place at 1’10”6 ahead of the first Rebellion R13 n°3 of Thomas Laurent. The second BR1 n°11 – SMP Racing of Vitaly Petrov was in 6th place just before stopping.

G-Drive and Porsche at the helm in LM P2 and GTE.

In LM P2, the #07 Oreca 26 – G-Drive Racing of Jean-Eric Vergne leads the category with almost 6″ ahead of the #28 – TDS Racing of Loïc duval and l'Alpine A470 n°36 Signatech Alpine de Nicolas lapierre. Pole sitter Paul-Loup Chatin (Oreca 07 n°48 – IDEC Sport) is 4th at 23″ ahead of the first Ligier JS P217 n°23 – Panis-Barthez Compétition of Will Stevens.

In GTE Pro, if the two Porsche 911 RSRs n°91 and n°92 had taken the lead at the start of the race, only the n°92 retained the leadership after the first stops, Michael Christensen taking the Ford GT n° in his wake. °68 by Dirk Müller.

The #911 Porsche 91 RSR of Gianmaria Bruni and #93 of Patrick Pilet follow at 3″7 and 11″8. The first one Ferrari 488 – AF Corse n°51 of James Calado completes the top 5 just ahead of the first Corvette C7.R n°63 of Antonio Garcia.

Ben Barker (Porsche 911 RSR n°86 – Gulf Racing) dominates the GTE Am category.

Ranking after one hour