Toyota Pits Early to Lead After First Hour

Toyota held the lead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans after the first hour of the FIA World Endurance Championship’s blue-riband event after using an alternate strategy to catapult up the order.

The No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid started down in 15th place and remained mired in the midfield in the opening stint before opting to pit after just nine laps.

That subsequently put Sebastien Buemi into the lead of the race once the other Hypercar runners had stopped as the manufacturer used a similar strategy to the previous round of the WEC at Spa, when it also pitted early to vault up the order.

Will Stevens briefly put the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R into the lead at the start of the race as the pole-sitting No. 15 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 of Kevin Magnussen made a poor initial launch.

Magnussen was nearly tagged by Rene Rast in the sister No. 20 car into the first corner but Rast was able to squeeze ahead and then blasted by Stevens on the Mulsanne Straight.

Rast continued to pull clear of the Cadillac until the first round of stops with the BMW edging clear in traffic.

In contrast Magnussen was struggling and plummeted down the order in the opening stages, dropping to seventh by the time of the first round of stops with the Dane complaining about poor brake balance.

When Rast stopped on lap 13, he emerged behind the Toyota of Buemi who then proceeded to edge clear by about five seconds at the conclusion of the first hour.

Rast occupied second while Ferdinand Habsburg in the lead Alpine A424 moved ahead of Stevens in the pit stops to run third in the No. 35 machine.

Earl Bamber guided the No. 38 JOTA Cadillac up to fourth after a flying first lap for the car that was provisionally on pole position before having its fastest time in Hyperpole deleted for entering the fast lane too early.

The second No. 7 Toyota of Mike Conway climbed to fifth after adopting a similar strategy to the sister car, while Stevens ended the first hour down in sixth.

The No. 101 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Filipe Albuquerque occupied seventh, with Magnussen having dropped to eighth.

The two factory Ferrari 499Ps rounded out the top-ten with Antonio Giovinazzi ahead in the No. 51 car from Antonio Fuoco.

The best of the Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyries, the No. 009 of Marco Sorensen, was 11th while Genesis Magma Racing had slid down from its eighth-place start to run 13th at the end of the first hour.

The Peugeot 9X8s continued to prop up the Hypercar field approaching a minute behind the leading Toyota.

Job van Uitert maintained the LMP2 lead at the wheel of the No. 28 IDEC Sport Oreca 07 Gibson having started from pole.

Fellow front-row starter Esteban Masson plummeted to sixth on a frantic first lap but together with van Uitert stopped a lap earlier than most of the field on lap nine, and was able to vault back up to second in the No. 29 Forestier Racing by Panis entry.

Julien Andlauer was on a charge in the No. 30 Duqueine Team entry and climbed to third, while the No. 4 CrowdStrike by APR car had initially ran third but fell back after George Kurtz took over from Alex Quinn at the first stop.

Dane Cameron was therefore promoted to fourth in the No. 99 AO by TF entry with Jack Doohan rounding out the top-five for Nielsen Racing.

Jack Hawksworth moved into the lead of the LMGT3 division after the first round of stops aboard the No. 78 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 after Mattia Drudi had initially occupied first spot in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

But, when Ian James took over from factory ace Drudi at the first stop, the Aston fell to second.

The second of the Lexus machines occupied third with Petru Umbrarescu taking over from Clemens Schmid, while the top-five was completed by the pair of WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVOs.