24h Le Mans
From gravel trap to sheer grit, the striking gold #38 Cadillac prepared by Hertz Team JOTA topped the table in the first official Free Practice session - chased hard by a rapid quartet consisting of 2024 winners, the #50 Ferrari AF Corse 499P, a brace of Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s and the #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 - Hybrid.
We have been deprived of on track action for two days at the Circuit de la Sarthe - but now the wait is over, as the first Free Practice session got Wednesday underway.
After two test day sessions on Sunday to help teams find baseline set-ups, today teams will be refining those set-ups, giving drivers valuable seat time as well as cycling through various race scenarios. Teams also have a tricky balancing act over the next few days. Not only will they need to prepare for qualifying for the Hyperpole this evening, they will also want to keep their true race pace close to their chests for as long as possible - not to give their rivals any inkling of their real performance potential.
Four-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Yannick Dalmas waved the green flag at 14:00 local time to signal the start of the three-hour FP1 session with the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 leading the 62 cars out of the pits. The scarlet red #50 Ferrari 499P looked quick from the off - with the early benchmark of 03:25.302 being set on the second lap.
A Full Course Yellow (FCY) was sprung into action 10 minutes into the session to recover the #24 LMP2 ORECA of Nielsen Racing, which ran wide at Arange corner. Three minutes later the speed restriction was lifted allowed a breakaway trio to make their mark. The #50 Ferrari AF Corse shadowed by the #8 and #7 Toyotas were blanketed by less than a second.
In the second half of the session, Porsche upped the ante - sending in the #6 and #5 963s. Last year's pole sitter Kévin Estre muscled himself into the mix behind the Ferrari, while stablemate Michael Christensen prized open a gap to put his 963 into fifth ahead of Will Stevens in the second of the Hertz Team JOTA Cadillacs.
Toyota worked through their programme, and had the #8 GR010 - Hybrid in the top four throughout - showing strong outright pace. A flurry of cars in the final two laps shuffled the #7 down to 11th. Perhaps some head scratching to be done in the coming hours, or a strategy of deception from across the garage. Only time will tell.
But it was hometown hero Sébastien Bourdais - who lit up the session firing the earth-moving Cadillac prepared by Hertz Team JOTA onto the summit of the table in the final 30 minutes to the delight of the home fans. However the session wasn’t all plain sailing for the #38 V8 machine.
In the first hour, teammate Earl Bamber dropped the very same Cadillac Hypercar in the final chicane gravel trap in the opening 30 minutes of the session. The Kiwi managed to recover the car out of the kitty litter. But had a long road back to the pit-lane entrance. Not so lucky was the #150 Ferrari 296 LMGT3 of Richard Mille AF Corse which got beached in the gravel trap on the approach to the Dunlop Bridge - forcing a Slow Zone to recover the stricken car and place it back on the race track.
The first Red Flag was called upon in the second hour after the #63 Iron Lynx-prepared Mercedes-AMG LMGT3 made contact with the barriers on the approach to the Dunlop chicane. The car didn’t make it back out on track with too much damage, but most importantly, Stephen Grove who was behind the wheel walked away unscathed.
Just under 30 minutes later a second Red Flag was thrown as a test exercise from Race Control and with a small stop in the session. With running resumed, the Free Practice session ran uninterrupted to its conclusion.
One of the longest-running formulas in 24 Hours of Le Mans history looks as exciting as ever. The Pro/Am RLR M Sport outfit returned back to the top, after taking fastest spot in the Sunday opening test session. The #16 ORECA on the fourth lap notched up a time of 03:36.888 the only team to break under the 03:37 mark in the prototype class. Previous category winners Inter Europol Competition look handy with their #43 sat in second ahead of the #45 Algarve Pro Racing car.
In the GT category - the Akkodis ASP Team continue their unbetween run - topping three sessions from three this week with the big #78 Lexus looking right at home on the Le Mans circuit. The gap has come down to the competition, with the rest of the pack catching-up as the #54 Vista Af Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3 finishing only half a tenth behind with the Racing Spirit of Leman rounding out the top three with their Aston Martin - making it three different manufacturers in the top three.
On a side note - all running cars except for the #63 Iron Lynx Mercedes broke the four-minute barrier for the first time this week.
The action doesn’t stop there. Tonight we have Free Practice 2 - allowing teams to experience running in night time conditions, but before then we have the qualifying session for the Hyperpole for all classes. This evening we will find out the top 12 in LMP2 and LMGT3 and the quickest 15 in the Hypercars. Those cars will advance to tomorrow's Hyperpole. The rest will have to watch from the sidelines. It’s going to be exciting!
