The 6 Hours of Barcelona presented by Visit Qatar saw ferocious action and multiple incidents over the course of a spectacular start to the penultimate round of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign
The race began in damp conditions and went through several extra formation laps before going green; when it did so, there was chaos at Turn One as first the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R of Will Stevens made contact with the #35 Alpine driven by Ferdinand Habsburg, which spun the French Hypercar through the gravel and incurred the Cadillac a 10-second penalty
Prior to that, Daniel Juncadella had made a bold move on his Genesis Magma Racing stablemate and pole-sitter André Lotterer to seize the initiative at the opening turn, but the Spanish ace blotted his copybook by skating off the track at Turn Five a few corners later and fell to the rear of the field, elevating Sébastien Buemi to the overall lead in the #8 TOYOTA RACING TR010 Hypercar
The first of two Safety Cars was summoned to clear up another Turn One shunt when Hadrien David’s Akkodis ASP Team Lexus was hit by the #91 Manthey DK Engineering Porsche of James Cottingham, as part of a chain reaction triggered when Stefano Gattuso in the #88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang was turned around by the #61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG piloted by Martin Berry
When the action resumed, Buemi was able to open up a small gap over his pursuers but was also forced to factor in a five-second penalty for a starting infraction, which he had to serve at a future pit-stop
Battles raged fiercely as more rain arrived at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, making the track conditions even more treacherous
A second Safety Car was called after 30 minutes of racing, when Harry Tincknell skated through the Turn Five gravel and hit the tyre wall in the #007 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie
That triggered multiple pit-stops throughout the field, with the major beneficiary being the #20 BMW driven by René Rast, which was short-fuelled and climbed to second position
But the Bavarian brand’s joy was short-lived, as the M Hybrid V8 suffered a technical issue that necessitated a long pit-stop that dropped it to the rear of the Hypercar order
With Buemi in control at the front, the sister Toyota driven by a flying Nyck de Vries surged through the field, enabling the Japanese manufacturer to run one-two for most of the second hour
The Dutchman caught his Swiss stablemate just before the second scheduled pit-stops, but was unable to find a way past the #8 sister car
Leading the chase was the #50 Ferrari AF Corse 499P piloted by local hero Miguel Molina, who ran third ahead of a titanic battle between the #12 Cadillac (Stevens), #83 AF Corse Ferrari (Phil Hanson), #36 Alpine (Jules Gounon), #51 Ferrari (James Calado) and #93 Peugeot (Paul Di Resta)
With the track slowly drying, the teams had to be on their toes as the strategists weighed up possible dry tyre switches as the third hour arrived, and the field took on slick Michelins
In the shake-out after the stops, the now Mike Conway-crewed #7 Toyota briefly took the lead before relinquishing it back to the Brendon Hartley-piloted #8, as the pair switched positions on the start/finish straight
As the third hour arrived, the out-of-sequence and recovering #20 BMW of Rast sat a temporary third, heading the two factory Ferraris in fourth and fifth, with the #36 Alpine sixth
The pair of Genesis GMR-001s had a difficult start to the race, with multiple off-track moments relegating the Korean manufacturer to 10th (#19) and 16th (#17)
LMGT3
Yasser Shahin was the standout star of the first two hours of racing in Barcelona, as the Australian led the majority of the laps in the #92 The Bend Manthey Porsche
Shahin was able to establish a 10-second margin over a multi-manufacturer battle behind; that was initially led by the championship-chasing #33 TF Sport Corvette, as Ben Keating survived an early off-track moment to fight with the Eric Powell-driven #77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang
But carving past both of them came the flying Salih Yoluç in the Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette to climb to second
The second scheduled pit-stops took place just before the arrival of the third hour, with Shahin vacating the cockpit for Riccardo Pera, who re-emerged in the lead with a 15-second advantage
Peter Dempsey took over from Yoluç to consolidate second position ahead of the #77 Mustang, now in the hands of Sebastian Priaulx
Fourth and fifth currently are the two Team WRT BMW M4s, with Sean Gelael and Parker Thompson running in close proximity although the Indonesian was forced to serve a five-second penalty due to earlier contact for team-mate, Darren Leung
The #61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG entry of Rui Andrade ran sixth as the track dried out
Two cars that suffered debilitating delays were the #91 Manthey DK Engineering Porsche, which lost five laps to a technical issue that necessitated a lengthy pit-stop; the #54 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari lost time before the start, when Thomas Flohr spun and then pitted for precautionary checks
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