Buemi Passes Toyota Teammate Conway for Early Lead

Sebastien Buemi caught and moved past his Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Mike Conway for the lead of the 6 Hours of Portimao towards the end of the opening stint.

Conway started the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship from second and launched into the lead before building a seven-second advantage in the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid, but pole-sitter Buemi reduced the gap to force a position switch on the run down to the hairpin after 51 minutes.

Buemi dropped to third at the start of the race when he was overtaken by Ferrari AF Corse driver James Calado into Turn 3, however the Swiss driver fought back to reclaim the position up the inside at Turn 2 after five minutes.

The Ferrari 499Ps remained within 10 seconds of Buemi’s No. 8 Toyota for about 15 minutes until they started to fade midway through the first hour.

Nicklas Nielsen moved the No. 50 Ferrari ahead of James Calado in the No. 51 sister car and the Dane was just under 20 seconds behind the Toyotas shortly before the first round of Hypercar pit stops.

Laurens Vanthoor ran fifth for Porsche Penske Motorsport, around five seconds behind Calado’s Ferrari.

Nico Mueller was sixth during the opening stint in the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8, although the French manufacturer’s No. 93 car lost a lap at the beginning after it started from the pit lane due to a power steering issue.

Mueller nonetheless kept Peugeot in the Hypercar crowd, ahead of a battle between the other Porsche 963 of Dane Cameron and the Cadillac V-Series.R of Richard Westbrook.

The two former IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship DPi rivals battled in the early stages, with Westbrook getting the better of Cameron into the Turn 1 right-hander.

In LMP2, United Autosports moved to the head of the field and briefly ran first and second with its Oreca 07 Gibsons before the order changed in the pits.

Doriane Pin started on pole for Prema but was overtaken by Ben Hanley in the No. 22 United car, which was joined at the head of the field by its No. 23 stablemate driven by Giedo van der Garde.

The No. 23 then moved into the lead at the first round of stops, as Hanley swapped out for Frederick Lubin and van der Garde remained at the wheel of his Oreca.

AF Corse Ferrari driver Diego Alessi took early control of the GTE-Am class on his WEC debut, overtaking front-row starters Ben Keating and Sarah Bovy on the first lap.