Sebastien Buemi led the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Toyota with 14 hours completed and the race under safety car conditions due to heavy rain.
The Japanese make have been rewarded so far with their cautious, non-risk approach to a highly familiar race having competed in all editions since 2012.
For the reigning Hypercar manufacturers’ champion, they are looking for a third Le Mans victory for their GR010 Hybrid package,
The #7 entrant started last in the category, due to a rare yet costly mistake by Kamui Kobayashi in qualifying practice, as the #8 has found its own way to the sharp end of the field.
Laurens Vanthoor (#6 Porsche Penske 963) initially closed the gap to #8 driver Ryo Hirakawa, before Sebastien Buemi over the wheel and increased the gap significantly to over 13 seconds.
The rain increased in both severity and areas affected around the circuit, which began the race’s second safety car owing to heavily wet conditions shortly after the track returned to green.
In LMP2, the #24 Nielsen Racing’s valiant contention for the class victory was halted when David-Heinemeier Hansson beached his Oreca 07 in the gravel trap at the Porsche Curves.
AF Corse the race on in the #155 Francois Perrodo machiney, followed by the #/22 United Autosports Orea of Nolan Sieigel and the #/37 Cool Racing Oreca of Lorenzo Fluxa
In fourth and fifth places were the #34 Inter Europol Competition and the #10 Vector Sport entrants.
LMGT3 hosted a Manthey 1-2 with the #92 Alex Malykhin n front of the #91 Porsche 911 GT3.R of Yasser Shahin.
Fourth place was held by Ian James in the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage followed by Sarah Bovy’s #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini and the #87 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F of Takeshi Kimura.
