2026 24 Hours of Le Mans: Toyota leads BMW after first hour of racing

The No.8 Toyota Racing TR010 of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa leads the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans after the first hour of racing.

The 94th running of the iconic French enduro has completed a reasonably trouble-free first hour of running, with all 62 cars still running.

BMW led for most of the first hour, but was jumped in the first pitstop phase by the No.8 Toyota, driven by Sebastien Buemi, who stopped after just nine laps of running.

At the end of the first hour, Buemi was 6.7s clear of the No.20 BMW of Rene Rast, who did much of the leading in the first 60 minutes.

The polesitting No.15 BMW of Kevin Magnussen, Driest Vanthoor and Raffele Marciello was jumped off the start by the No.12 Jota Cadillac of Will Stevens, Alex Lynn and Norman Nato.

The No.15 BMW, driven by Magnussen, lost out to the sister No.20 car of Rast at the start, too, before it took the lead from the No.12 Cadillac at the first chicane.

Rast did much of the leading as the No.20 BMW continued to drop back through the pack.

Toyota, who started 14th and 15th, made early stops on laps nine and eight, with the No.7 driven by Mike Conway the first in.

The No.8 with Buemi behind the wheel stopped a lap later and was able to use clean air to vault into the lead when the leaders pitted at the end of lap 14.

Buemi leads Rast at the end of the first hour, while the No.35 Alpine of Ferdinand Habsburg completes the top three.

The No.38 Cadillac came up from 10th after losing pole position to run fourth at the end of hour one with Earl Bamber at the wheel.

The No.7 Toyota sits fifth from the No.12 Cadillac of Will Stevens, while the No.101 WTR Cadillac of Felipe Alberquerque is seventh.

The leading Ferrari was the No.51 car of Antonio Giovinazzi in eighth from the No.15 BMW of Magnussen and No.50 Ferrari of Nicklas Nielsen.

The 2025-winning No.83 AF Corse car with Phil Hanson at the wheel was only 16th at the end of the first hour.

In LMP2, the No.28 IDEC car of Job Van Uitert led the way after the pitstop cycle, while Jack Hakwsworth leads LMGT3 in the No.78 Lexus.

The only real drama of the first hour came in the form of the No.61 Iron Lynx Mercedes in LMGT3 spinning at Tertre Rouge on its outlap and suffering splitter damage.