24h Le Mans
The official Porsches set the pace during Test Day at the 92nd the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Toyota and Ferrari seemed at ease as well while Alpine and Peugeot did their best to keep up.
The 62 competitors took full advantage of the allotted six hours of track time on Sunday to fine-tune their cars ahead of the first official free practice on Wednesday. Rookie drivers completed their mandatory 10 laps to be eligible to take the start in the 2024 24 Hours while the rest of the entrants resolved last-minute technical problems, conducted fuel consumption tests and tweaked their car's set-ups. A great deal of work needed to be done in addition to juggling safety procedure tests planned by the sporting authorities and addressing possible session interruptions while giving the driver trios the time to run their laps.
Former F1 driver Brendon Hartley kicked off the afternoon with an impressive pace (03:27.921 from his first lap) at the wheel of the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid. Kévin Estre (#6 Porsche 963) clocked the fastest provisional time two laps later in 03:26.907. Oliver Jarvis placed the #22 ORECA at the front of the LMP2 field with a time of 03:34.704. In the LMGT3 category, the 4-minute lap mark was crossed by a few competitors at the very beginning of the session.
The red flag was waved at 16:16 following Stéphane Richelmi's incident in the Indianapolis corner at the wheel of Vector Sport's #10 ORECA 07-Gibson. Meanwhile, the Akkodis ASP Team worked on the #78 Lexus plagued with clutch troubles. The situation was even more serious for the #15 BMW Hypercar, forced to spend the first two hours stuck in the garage so the car's P66/3 V8 could be replaced before retaking the track heading into the last hour.
1. #6 Porsche 963 of Porsche Penske Motorsport – Kévin Estre / André Lotterer / Laurens Vanthoor – 03:26.907
2. #4 Porsche 963 of Porsche Penske Motorsport – Mathieu Jaminet / Felipe Nasr / Nick Tandy – 03:27.142
3. #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of TOYOTA GAZOO Racing – Sébastien Buemi / Brendon Hartley / Ryo Hirakawa – 03:27.615
4. #5 Porsche 963 of Porsche Penske Motorsport – Matt Campbell / Michael Christensen / Frédéric Makowiecki – 03:27.773
5. #50 Ferrari 499P of Ferrari AF Corse – Antonio Fuoco / Miguel Molina / Nicklas Nielsen – 03:28.014
The cars will return to the track on Wednesday, but can be admired up close on Tuesday during the pit walk (14:00 to 18:00) and autograph session (14:00 to 15:00) accessible with a simple General Enclosure ticket.
