Victory at the FIA World Endurance Championship 1,000 Miles of Sebring never seemed in doubt for the grandfathered LMP1 Alpine Elf Team #36 despite the three red flags that caused the event to come to an early conclusion.
Starting from pole, Alpine had the perfect start to the race, beating the chasing second-placed Glickenhaus Racing #708 into Turn 1. The two Toyota Gazoo Racing machines got bogged down by the LMP2 United Autosports duo, leaving the run clear for Alpine to begin building on their race lead. Toyota managed to get back on the right foot and begin their chase of Alpine, but by time the #8 and #7 got to second and third respectively, the Alpine already had a 20 second lead.
It was still the early stages of the race so Toyota had time to play tactics and try to utilise a different pit strategy and longer stints to make up the time on the Alpine. Brendon Hartley, Sebasiten Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa looked like they were making some ground up when disaster struck the sister car. Jose Maria Lopez was on board when the #7 made contact with a Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche trying to lap it on the 3.7 mile circuit and spun into the tyre barriers at Turn 9. There was a lot of damage on the car, forcing Lopez to bring it back to the pits, but on his way back to the garage the Toyota veered off track again, hitting more tyre barriers at Turn 15 but this time flipping over and landing on its roof.
Lopez was fine and managed to extract himself from the car, passing the medical checks once he had returned to the paddock. He admitted on his TV interview that it had been his mistake that caused the second Turn 15 crash, stating he had misjudged his speed going through the corner in his haste to get back to the pits. The incident brought out the first red flag of the session and a 30 minute delay to repair the barriers.
Alas, the 1,000 Miles of Sebring was not destined to run its full course, for with three hours remaining on the clock threats of an electric storm crossing the track began to emerge. Due to safety laws in America, it is illegal to continue racing during an electrical storm, so as a precaution the race was red flagged once again to see if the storm would pass. A short delay later and the cars were back on track, but again it wasn’t to last.