Number eight Toyota leads Ferraris after two hours as driveshaft issue drops second Toyota · RaceFans

Ryo Hirakawa leads the Six Hours of Portimao after two hours ahead of the two Ferraris of number 50 and number 51 following a driveshaft problem for the number seven Toyota.

Sebastian Buemi completed the opening shift for the leading Toyota, handing over to team mate Hirakawa from the lead at the two hour mark. The number 50 Ferrari 499P sits second, driven by Miguel Molina, with Antonio Giovinazzi third in the second Ferrari number 51.

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.

At the two hour mark, the number 22 United Autosports car led the LMP2 class with Joshua Pierson 14 seconds ahead of Daniil Kvyat in the Prema car. In GTE AM, Iron Lynx are leading with their number 60 car.

Six Hours of Portimao Hypercar race standings after two…