Buemi Toyota Out of Spa Lead With Issue; Retires from Race

Sebastien Buemi has lost the lead and retired in the TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa, handing the lead to Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Mike Conway.

Buemi’s No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid pulled over by the side of the Kemmel Straight for a reset and resumed before coming to a halt again at Campus. The Swiss driver climbed out of the car, visibly frustrated that his car’s race was over.

Conway now leads from the No. 9 Prema Oreca 07 Gibson of Lorenzo Colombo and Team WRT’s Sean Gelael.

The two LMP2 runners jumped up after the No. 708 Glickenhaus 007 Pipo of Olivier Pla spun on the runoff at turn 19 under safety car, with Alpine’s Andre Negrao also going wide and having to come to a complete stop to avoid contact with the Frenchman.

All of these event occurred under the safety car, which came after a red flag due to a crash by ARC Bratislava’s Miro Konopka.

Konopka touched the gravel on the exit of Fagnes on the approach to Campus and spun across the track, causing a significant impact with the tire barriers.

Initially, the safety car was called upon before race control instead opted for a red flag to recover the damaged No. 44 Oreca.

Konopka walked away from the crash and into the medical car unaided.

Porsche leads GTE-Pro with Michael Christensen out front in the No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR-19, ahead of the two AF Corse Ferraris of Alessandro Pier Guidi and Miguel Molina.

Corvette Racing was dealt a setback when the pits closed while its GTE-Pro car was undergoing an emergency service under safety car conditions.

After 24 minutes on pit road, Nick Tandy resumed three laps away from the Pro-class lead battle but gained some ground under the safety car that followed the red flag.

D’Station Racing’s Satoshi Hoshino leads GTE-Am, with TF Sport’s Ben Keating in second position.