Laurens Vanthoor has lead the entirety of the first hour of the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Fuji, as the #6 Porsche 963 driver took the lead from Toyota at the very first corner.
He got up the inside of polesitter Mike Conway, in the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid, taking the lead as Conway dropped to third and teammate Buemi, in the sister #8 Toyota, to sixth, as he was hit by Miguel Molina in the #50 Ferrari.
After a quick safety car period to recover the stricken Luis Perez Companic in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, who had got stuck in the gravel at T1, the race restarted. Conway attempted to pass Molina for P2, but was pushed wise, losing P3 to James Calado in the sister #51 Ferrari.
This put the Toyotas fourth abd fifth, once Buemi had cleared Alex Lynn in the #2 Cadillac V-Series.R.
Over the course of the stint, Conway and Buemi battled with Calado, but Calado had the pace to keep the Japanese-German c ars behind. However, Calado began to struggle with tyre wear, and Conway finally overtook his British countryman, with Buemi following through a little while afterwards.
Conway also then got Molina to retake P2, but by this point Vanthoor had a nine second lead. The Belgian then pitted, giving Conway the lead, until the Briton too pitted five laps later.
With the pit stops now shaken out, Vanthoor leads by 17 seconds from Conway, with Buemi third and Antonio Felix da Costa in the #8 JOTA Porsche 963 a surprise fourth, thanks to quick pit work from the JOTA crew.
Lynn is fifth, with Molina and Conway dropping to sixth and seventh.
United Autosports leads 1-2 in LMP2, with Filipe Albuquerque first in the #22 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson and Josh Pierson second in the sister #23 car.
Ben Keating leads GTE-Am in the #33 Corvette C8.R, from Satoshi Hoshino in the #777 D’Station Aston Martin Vantage AMR. Third is Sarah Bovy in the #85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR-19.
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