The #8 Toyota leads the 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours one hour into the race, despite starting from a lowly 15th position.
Kevin Magnussen’s polesitting #15 BMW collapsed to eighth in the first hour; the Dane lost out to Will Stevens’ #12 Cadillac before even the first corner of the race before Rene Rast passed them both in the sister #20 BMW, by the first chicane of the Mulsanne straight.
Nobody has matched the German’s pace in the first half an hour, as he created a gap of up to nine seconds to Stevens, while Magnussen repeatedly got overtaken.
But the Toyotas pitted earlier than their rivals and, surprisingly, the #8 car driven by Sebastien Buemi managed to narrowly emerge from the opening pitstop sequence in the lead.
Buemi doubled down and impressively pulled away, with Rast over seven seconds down at 5pm local time.
#20 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Robin Frijns, Rene Rast, Sheldon Van Der Linde
Photo by: Marc Fleury
Everyone else was even further adrift, as Ferdinand Habsburg (#35 Alpine) led a quartet including Earl Bamber (#38 Cadillac), Mike Conway (#7 Toyota) and Stevens (#12 Cadillac).
The factory Ferrari 499Ps driven by Antonio Giovinazzi and Nicklas Nielsen were involved in breathtaking, uncompromising wheel-to-wheel action on lap one, sometimes taking it as far as the run-off area but never making significant contact.
As of 5pm, the winning constructor from the last three years had its cars down in eighth, 10th and 16th.
In LMP2, lightning-quick polesetter Esteban Masson collapsed to sixth on lap one with the #29 Forester by Panis entry, with Job van Uitert taking the lead in the #28 car from IDEC Sport. The Frenchman fought back to second after the opening pitstop sequence. Julien Andlauer (#30 Duqueine Team) narrowly led Dane Cameron (#99 AO by TF) and Jack Doohan (#24 Nielsen Racing) in third.
The LMGT3 category saw polesitter Mattia Drudi maintain the #27 Aston Martin’s advantage, until it dropped behind the #78 Lexus from Akkodis ASP Team, driven by Jack Hawksworth, after the first round of pitstops.
The only incident from the first hour involved the #61 Iron Lynx-entered Mercedes as Martin Berry spun in Tertre Rouge, sustaining non-terminal damage.
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- The Autosport.com Team
Source: Autosport