After six hours, the #8 GR010 HYBRID of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa were running sixth although the #7 GR010 HYBRID of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries were down in 18th after a penalty halted their push for the top 10.

In front of a sell-out crowd of over 320,000 the race began at 4pm on a warm, cloudy afternoon. Sébastien lined up 10th in the #8 with Mike in 16th in his #7. Both cars started their fightback in the opening hour, although the #7 suffered bodywork damage on the very first lap when it was hit by a Peugeot.

Mike battled hard to close in on the top 10 and overtook both Alpines either side of the one-hour mark. Sébastien made solid progress, getting past the #15 BMW on track before leapfrogging the #51 Ferrari in the pits to run seventh at the end of the second hour, maintaining a strong pace even on older tyres.

Early in the third hour, Brendon took new tyres at the first driver changes but dropped to seventh when the #51 Ferrari and #15 BMW got ahead during his first stint. Meanwhile, Kamui set a fast pace on new tyres until a lock up at Mulsanne corner cost him 15 seconds. As the fourth hour approached, Kamui pitted to replace his damaged front right tyre.

The fifth hour started with Brendon challenging the #311 Cadillac for sixth, while Kamui was 11th. At the next driver change after four-and-a-half hours, Ryo took over the #8 and kept up the hunt for the top-six, while Nyck was pushing to recover into the top 10.

A battling overtake put the #7 into 13th, just a few seconds away from 10th but that charge was halted by a 50-second stop-go penalty – imposed for exceeding the speed limit when leaving the pit lane at the start of Nyck’s stint. He took that penalty during a full course yellow late in the sixth hour.

Kamui Kobayashi (Team Principal and driver, car #7):

“It has been a bit up and down on our car. We have looked okay even though the position is not where we want to be. But there is still a long way to go. We are trying to survive at this stage. We already suffered damage on lap one and then the penalty. The most important thing now is to be consistent and to manage the car. There’s still a long way to go and we are trying our best.”

Mike Conway (Driver, car #7):

“I’m pretty annoyed by the contact with the Peugeot at the start because there was barely room for another car there and it’s lap one of a 24-hour race. He hit me and damaged the left side of our car. It felt okay to drive but we don’t need that at the start, and it’s hard to say how it might affect us later in the race. From there I got my head down and got into a rhythm, overtook a couple of cars but lost some positions in the pits. It’s still early, so we’ll see how the race pans out.”

Sébastien Buemi (Driver, car #8):

“We had some big battles at the start, and it was very tight. Our pace seemed decent, and I was able to make up some positions. From where we started, it was a positive sign to be running in the top six at the end of my stint. I still feel that we are in the fight, so we will keep pushing and stay focused until the end.”

Brendon Hartley (Driver, car #8):

“I had a clean stint, made no mistakes, and we are still in the running. We seem to be missing a little performance at this stage, particularly in terms of top speed, and that makes it harder to move up the order. But we are fighting, everyone is pushing very hard, and the mechanics have been doing solid pit stops. We are playing the long game and so far, so good.”