It’s been an incident-packed first hour of racing in the 90th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
When Patrick Pouyanné waved the tricolor flag, Sébastien Buemi led the race in the #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid ahead of Mike Conway in the sister #7 car, followed the #708 Glickenhaus Racing 007 LMH driven by Olivier Pla and Franck Mailleux in the #709 Glickenhaus Racing 007 LMH.
The four leading cars pitted from lap 10 onwards. After this sequence of events, the #7 of Conway took the lead ahead of the #8 of Buemi, and the two Glickenhaus SCG 007s behind them with the #708 of Mailleux now ahead the #709 of Pla. Behind them was the #36 Alpine Elf Team A480-Gibson, driven by Nicolas Lapierre, in fifth.
Meanwhile in LMP2, drama hit the track immediately as the #22 United Autosport Oreca 07 Gibson driven by Will Owen was pincered at turn one by Robert Kubica in the #9 Prema Orlen Team Oreca and René Rast in the #31 WRT Oreca. The #22 ended up in the gravel trap, and once it was pulled back on track, Owen pitted for front bodywork repairs, eventually rejoining the race two laps down. Rast was inflicted with a one minute stop and go penalty, deemed to be responsible for the incident.
Ferdinand Habsburg was a probable victim of the turn one incident, as his #41 Realteam by WRT Oreca suffered from a rear right tyre puncture. He pitted for a tyre change and bodywork repairs. Sophia Flörsch stopped the #47 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca on track due to gearbox issues. The #47 managed to return to the pits but lost five laps through this sequence of events.
After one hour of racing, it’s Antonio Felix da Costa who leads in the #38 JOTA Oreca, followed by Kubica in the #9 Prema and Felipe Nasr in the #5 Team Penske cars, second and third.
Ben Hanley leads LMP2 Pro/Am in the #24 Nielsen Racing Oreca.
Corvette Racing’s 1-2 held station at the start of the GTE Pro class’ final Le Mans, with the factory Porsches and AF Corse Ferraris behind them in grid formation. Nick Tandy’s #64 Corvette C8.R had team mate Antonio Garcia’s #63 hard on his tail, the #64 Corvette’s pace stretching the three factory supported marques – Corvette, from Porsche, from Ferrari, ten seconds covering the top six. The only change was between the two Porsches, Kevin Estre in the #92 entry having switched with Frédéric Makowiecki’s #91 car for third.
AF Corse’s Ferrari 488 GTE Evos were losing ground early on. Despite a small BoP gain for the race, the pace at the front had dropped the #51 and #52 Ferraris twelve and thirteen seconds respectively off the GTE-Pro leader. They were lapped by the Hypercar leaders for the first time on lap 10. The #52 car was almost hit by its #21 GTE-Am cousin as it exited its first pit stop, but the two cars narrowly avoided inter-team faux pas.
Porsche took a chance on their pit strategy, whereas both the Corvettes chose to double-stint their tyres. More specifically, a longer stop for the #91 Porsche saw a change of rubber, while the #92 car rejoined on its original set as they split strategies early on. After pit stops, the Corvettes settled back into their 1-2 running order but were in danger of losing pace on track – hot conditions were already testing tyre strategies with the new compounds. Both AF Corse Ferraris took tyres on their pit stops.
Riley Motorsport were obviously going to have to run their own race if this pace continued. They were half a minute off the class leader and thirteen seconds adrift off the rest of the class with just thirty minutes run. The #74 Ferrari elected to keep its tyres at the first round of stops.
Hardpoint Motorsport’s #99 Porsche 911 RSR-19, driven by Alessio Picariello, leads the way in GTE Am as Porsche occupy the top four positions after the first round of pit stops.
Vincent Abril and the #61 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo’s lead from pole position lasted just a single lap, as Harry Tincknell’s #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche took advantage of the first corner Slow Zone’s release, getting the drop on Abril and Mikkel Jensen’s #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari to lead the field. Ben Barker’s mercurial second lap from the bunched up re-start punched the #86 GR Racing Porsche past the Ferraris, as did Matteo Cairoli in the #46 Project 1 Porsche for an early Porsche 1-2-3.
Indeed, the Porsches’ early pace was mighty, as the #99 Hardpoint Motorsport, #79 WeatherTech Racing, and the #56 Project 1 Porsches completed a top six lockout before the first pit stops. Tincknell’s pace had faded by the fifth lap, Matteo Cairoli’s #46 Team Project 1 Porsche made a pass for the lead, and Barker followed through in the #86 GR Racing 911 RSR-19.
Picariello pitted a lap earlier than his Stuttgart stablemates ahead of him, which allowed the black and bronze #99 Hardpoint Motorsports Porsche – an eleventh-hour addition to this year’s field – to the lead at the end of the first hour, ahead of the #46 of Cairoli, and the #79 of Julien Andlauer.
The Spa winning #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche dropped to fifth; six seconds off the lead and half a second off Cairoli’s lap times, but made up a place to fourth at the pit stops. Nicki Thiim’s #98 Northwest AMR Vantage is the best of the rest before the first round of stops, currently running fifth but already half a minute off Picariello’s lead and over a second off the pace.
Unrelated to the first corner LMP2 incident, Michelle Gatting in the #85 Iron Dames Ferrari picked up a puncture early on, and is now recovering from the back of the field.
