Sebastien Buemi holds an early lead over Toyota team-mate Mike Conway in the Six Hours of Bahrain, which has seen drama in GTE Am early on.
Buemi’s #8 Toyota leads the #7 sister car of Conway from the start, with Matthieu Vaxiviere in third in the #36 Alpine A480-Gibson.
LMP2 saw significant change on the opening lap. The two JOTA cars, which started first and third, dropped back. Giedo van der Garde leaped up to the lead in the #29 Racing Team Nederland ORECA 07-Gibson, with Loic Duval into second place for Realteam Racing.
Phil Hanson holds third for United Autosports, ahead of Renger van der Zande and Sean Gelael, who started from pole in the #28 JOTA but has dropped back somewhat.
In GTE Pro, Porsche leads one-two from the start with Kevin Estre and Gianmaria Bruni leading ahead of the AF Corse Ferraris of Miguel Molina and Alessandro Pier Guidi.
GTE Am is led by the #54 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo after a drama-filled opening few laps. Francesco Castellacci started the race in the silver Ferrari and quickly moved up to second behind the polesitting #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of Rino Mastronardi.
While battling, the two cars made contact at turn one. Castellacci took the lead while Mastronardi was forced into the garage, although it was implied that the issue was gearbox-related and not a result of the earlier impact.
Tomonobu Fujii sits in second with Ben Keating third, while a struggling Paul Dalla Lana has dropped back from second to fourth place.
The #88 Dempsey-Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 is also in the garage with a reported steering issue.
