Toyota dominated the Six Hours of Portimao with the number eight car winning by over a lap from the number 50 Ferrari and the number six Penske Porsche.
After losing the lead at the start, Sebastien Buemi caught the sister number seven Toyota, taking the lead through the pits and never letting go to win more than a lap ahead of Ferrari. The number 50 Ferrari secured the 499P’s best finish in second, with Andre Lotterer surviving a late fuel scare in the number six Penske Porsche to finish third.
At the start, the pole winning number eight Toyota driven by Sebastien Buemi was immediately swamped on the run to turn one and was overtaken by its number seven team mate driven by Mike Conway around the outside into turn one. The number 51 Ferrari with James Calado behind the wheel then demoted Buemi down to third by also sweeping around into number eight Toyota to third.
After five minutes of racing, Buemi muscled his way passed the Ferrari into the kink of turn two, claiming the position under braking for turn three and restoring a Toyota one-two at the front, albeit with the number seven car holding an advantage of around five seconds out front. While Ferrari lost second place, they soon regained fourth with the number 50 car when Nicklas Nielsen passed the Penske Porsche of Laurens Vanthoor which had overtaken him during the start.
As Buemi began reeling in his team mate out front, the two Ferraris quickly fell away from the Toyotas behind. Calado vocally disputed his team’s request to move over and allow his team mate by, but it was not long before Nielsen took the position on the track, taking advantage of Calado being caught behind a GT car to out-drag his team mate into third on the exit of turn four.
After the first round of pit stops, the number eight Toyota found itself out in the lead ahead of its previously leading team mate. However, an hour and 15 minutes into the race, the second place number seven Toyota suddenly received a black-and-orange warning flag by race control due to a driveshaft data problem, forcing Conway to pit to change the driveshaft and falling over eight laps down to its leading team mate. This moved the two Ferraris into second and third, around half a minute behind the leading number eight Toyota.
As Jose Maria Lopez began the number seven car’s fight back through the field, Hirakawa took over the leading Toyota and gradually extended the number eight’s lead to sit at 45 seconds at the midrace stage. In the third placed…
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