A demon start from Alvaro Parente in the #98 ART McLaren saw him pull several car lengths on the rest of the field as they swept down the long start-finish straight for the first time.
There was mostly clean racing through the first few corners a battle for fourth and fifth between Edward Sandstrom in the #26 Sainteloc Audi and Guy Smith in the #7 Bentley the main interest at this point. Antoine Leclerc was another fast starter, leapfrogging several cars to almost reclaim his pre-penalty grid position and move to eighth by the end of the first lap.
Kevin Estre was expected to claw rapidly through the field in the #99 McLaren after the car was put to the back of the grid for an engine change, but contact with the #14 Emil Frey Jaguar on lap one left his car with a right rear puncture and bodywork damage, and he headed straight for the pits. Damage to the right rear brakes meant the car could not continue.
Lap three saw Guy Smith sweep around the outside of Sandstrom through Signes to take fourth place, while the #10 TDS BMW of Eric Dermont came to a halt at turn 12 with front-end damage.
Up front, second-place Katusmasa Chiyo was still within a second-and-a-half of Parente on lap four, with Dusseldorp in the #85 HTP Mercedes 3.6 seconds behind Chiyo.
Marco Seefried in the #333 Rinaldi Ferrari was next to pass Sandstrom, on lap five. Max Buhk also made a move on the Swede, but then fell victim to an opportunistic Antoine Leclerc behind, who snuck into seventh through Signes and would later pass Sandstrom, too, moving into sixth overall.
Buhk and Andrea Rizzoli (#90 Villorba Ferrari) passed Sandstrom on laps 11 and 12, demoting the Sainteloc Audi to ninth with just over 30 minutes of the three-hour race run. Having a better race was Florian Strauss.
By lap 11, Chiyo was still within 1.5 seconds of Parente, and then the Japanese ace began to claw back tenths, getting as close as 1.1 seconds behind the leading McLaren on lap 15. Meanwhile, Buhk set about attacking Seefried’s Ferrari, slicing through to fifth at the final corner on lap 17, while Guy Smith was looking racy behind Dusseldorp’s Mercedes.
The battle for the lead intensified as Parente and Chiyo began to lap backmarkers on lap 19 – Chiyo just half a second behind at this point.
On lap 20, Seefried in the #333 Ferrari slowed on the track and tumbled down the order before pulling into the pits, while Smith found a way past Dusseldorp to move the #7 Bentley into third. Buhk also re-passed Leclerc to make it a HTP Mercedes 4-5 for now.
The first scheduled pitstops were for the #19 Black Falcon Mercedes (Al Faisal out, Haupt in) and #1 WRT Audi (Basseng out, Ramos in).
As the first hour drew to a close, Chiyo lost a lot of pace in the Nissan, then fell into the clutches of a charging Guy Smith as the pair tried to negotiate traffic. Smith took the place at the start of lap 29, going around the outside of turn one.
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