The anniversary race at Le Mans has started!

The Le Mans anniversary race is underway: the 24-hour marathon celebrates its centenary this year, and it’s probably symbolic in its own way that two of the latest Ferrari 499P sports prototypes will start from the front row. Cars built in Maranello have won 9 times in the overall category and 35 times in individual classes at the Sarte circuit.

By the way, Charles Leclerc was spotted before the start at Le Mans, who had come there especially to cheer on his colleagues from the factory AF Corse team. How their affairs will go on the marathon distance will become clear as events develop on the track, but some difficulties already started at the start, when the weather started to deteriorate, it was already raining in some parts of the ring.

LeBron James, the famous American basketball player, symbolically gave the green light with the French tricolor and before the start of the warm-up round he spoke in French the phrase Pilotes, démarrez vos moteurs! (“Racers, start your engines!”)

Already in the very first corners after the start, a sharp moment occurred: one of the Toyota racers desperately smoked the brakes, and it is possible that there was some contact between the cars in the leading group. But nothing serious so far, and Niklas Nielsen, the Ferrari driver, kept the lead at the start of the circle.

But already on the first lap, Jack Aitken, a Cadillac racer, flew off the track at the Daytona chicane and his hypercar with tail number 311 crashed. However, he managed to return slowly to the pits and the safety car entered the track . .

But even before that, Sebastien Buemi launched a successful attack on the leading Ferrari and led the pack to the delight of the factory Toyota team and its fans. True, almost immediately the Swiss racer began to complain of problems – the brake booster was not working correctly …

We will talk about how the anniversary race at Le Mans will develop over the next 24 hours.