The 2021 Le Mans 24 Hours began with a bang after the #8 Toyota was extraordinarily punted offౠ track at the very first corner, the first of several wild moments♚ for the huge field as cool conditions and rain threw a curve ball into proceedings.

With the race only getting underw🌟ay with the cars behind the safety car as the clock clicked past 16:00, they 🦩completed two slow laps before getting underway.

However, it took just seconds for the race to descend in﷽to a farce up front as Olivier Pla in the #708 Glickenhaus completely misjudged his braking into the first corner and biff round the #8 Toyota of Se💙bastien Buemi.

Leaving Buemi pointing in the wrong direction, the car would stall 🦋soon afterwards to force him into the Hꦯypercar equivalent of a ‘ctrl, alt, delete’ before then running off again at Arnage.

Despite this, Buemi kept the car on the lead lap and is making up ground now, while the #7 Toyota being driven by Kamui Kobayashi holds a c꧙omfortable lead.

His c𒁃ause was aided by Nicolas Lapierre spinning the Alpine out of second place at Indianapolis, dropping it📖 down the order. Glickenhaus thus hold second and third, though Pla has a 10secs stop-go penalty to look forward to when he comes in.

Elsewhere,♚ IDEC Sport’s dismal Le Mans worsened as Patrick Pilet spun into the gravel on lap one, which comes after the sister car was w💃ithdrawn before the race for damage in an accident on Thursday.