Toyota beat Ferrari by more than one lap to win the second consecutive race RaceFans

Toyota dominated the Six Hours of Portimao race and the quantity eight automobile received by one lap over the quantity 50 Ferrari and the quantity six Penske Porsche.

After shedding the lead in the beginning, Sebastien Buemi caught up with brother quantity seven Toyota, took the lead within the pits and by no means stopped successful greater than a lap forward of Ferrari. Ferrari quantity 50 had the very best end of the 499P in second place, and Andre Lotterer was third within the quantity six Penske Porsche, surviving a late gasoline scare.

Initially, the quantity eight Toyota, led by Sebastien Buemi, choked instantly as he ran for Flip 1 and was overtaken by teammate quantity seven, who was pushed from the skin into Flip 1 by Mike Conway. 51 Ferrari, with James Calado on the wheel, then dropped Buemi to 3rd place and in addition swept the eighth Toyota to 3rd place.

After 5 minutes of racing, Buemi drove previous Ferrari into the bend of Flip 2, claiming the under-brake place for Flip three, and returning a Toyota one-two forward although automobile seven had an approximate benefit. 5 seconds forward. Ferrari misplaced second place, whereas Nicklas Nielsen quickly completed fourth in automobile quantity 50, beating Laurens Vanthoor’s Penske Porsche, who had overtaken him in the beginning.

As Buemi started to sway his teammate from the entrance, the 2 Ferraris shortly fell behind the Toyotas. Calado vocally objected to his group’s request to step apart and let his teammate go, but it surely wasn’t lengthy earlier than Nielsen took his place on the monitor and took benefit of Calado’s seize behind a GT automobile to pull his teammate to 3rd place. the exit of the fourth flip.

After the primary lap of the pit stops, Toyota quantity eight discovered itself main forward of its earlier main teammate. Nonetheless, one hour and quarter-hour after the race, second-place quantity seven Toyota abruptly obtained a black-and-orange warning flag by race management because of a driveshaft knowledge subject, forcing Conway to pit to switch the driveshaft and crashed over eight laps. as much as the main teammate. This put the 2 Ferraris in second and third locations, about half a minute behind main quantity eight Toyota.

As Jose Maria Lopez started the problem of automobile quantity seven on the sphere, Hirakawa took over main Toyota and progressively positioned the quantity eight result in 45 seconds within the mid-race stage. In third-place Ferrari quantity 51, Antonio Giovinazzi pulled again a bit from brother Ferrari and later reported that his automobile had a minor wire braking drawback.

The quantity 51 Ferrari was taken over by Alessandro Pier Guidi and dropped to seventh place behind the quantity 5 Penske Porsche, a number of laps behind till it lastly handed with simply over two hours.

Because the 4 hours approached, Hirakawa’s lead over the #50 Ferrari was nicely over a minute, and Kevin Estre moved as much as third place, half a minute behind within the quantity six Penske Porsche. Each of the primary two vehicles pitted with simply over two hours, with Brendon Hartley taking up the quantity eight Toyota for the ultimate race and Antonio Fuoco being positioned in Ferrari.

Michael Christensen reported energy steering issues with the quantity 5 Penske Porsche and introduced the automobile into the pits the place it was taken again to the storage. Then, the LMP2-leading #23 United Autosports automobile obtained a five-second penalty for breaching the pit lane and was threatened by Daniil Kvyat at #63 Prema.

After recovering from the propeller shaft drawback as much as the twenty second row, Kamui Kobayashi was informed to cease his quantity seven Toyota after it misplaced energy. He quickly returned to the pit lane to carry out an influence cycle earlier than rejoining the monitor. With 80 minutes left within the race, Hartley took second place behind the quantity 50 Ferrari, one lap behind to lap 175.

Simply earlier than the five-hour mark, the race was interrupted for the primary time because the Security Automotive was engaged when Jacques Villeneuve suffered a entrance brake failure in his Vanwall hypercar and slammed him into the limitations. The Security Automotive was deployed for about ten minutes and continued with 53 minutes earlier than the top of the race. Hartley pitted on the subsequent lap with Ferrari quantity 50 when the pit lane opened to refuel till the top of the race.

With below half-hour Ferrari 51 began to have brake issues and slowed down. He dropped to sixth place, overtaking the quantity 94 Peugeot. Andre Lotterer needed to make an emergency gasoline cease within the later moments to achieve the end, however in doing so he efficiently secured third place.

However there was no concern for the race leaders, as Hartley casually counted down the remaining time to take the checkered flag and safe Toyota’s second straight victory of the season and the quantity eight automobile’s first of the yr. Ferrari quantity 50 took the primary podium for the 499P on lap two, and Lotterer took third place for the quantity six Penske Porsche.

Cadillac completed fourth, forward of Peugeot 94 and Ferrari quantity 52. The quantity 93 Peugeot completed seventh forward of Glickenhaus, beating the quantity seven Toyota rebounding to ninth place.

It was a United Autosports two-to-one within the LMP2, with #23 ending forward of its #22 sister automobile, whereas WRT’s #41 automobile completed third. An epic battle for the GT AM victory between the Corvette and the AF Corse 83 Ferrari was received by the Corvette two-tenths of a second, with Iron Dames ending third on the rostrum.

Six Hours of Portimao race outcomes

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