The first track session of the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans saw both Toyota Gazoo Racing TS050 HYBRIDs lead the field, ahead of both Rebellion Racing R-13s. High Class Racing and Racing Team Nederland were the pace setters in LMP2, while Aston Martin Racing locked out the top two positions in GTE-Pro, and three of the top four GTE cars with the #98 ending the session as the top GTE-Am runner, 4th fastest in GTE.
A cool but sunny morning greeted the field for the first running at the Circuit de la Sarthe since the end of the 24 Hours last year. Track conditions started out cold and greasy, with slippery surface flags shown on the first few laps of running.
The early session running was largely installation runs with minimal timed laps coming from the field. The first true lap in anger was Gustavo Menezes at the seat of the #1 Rebellion R13 just on three-quarters of an hour into the session. His 3:23.155 was the early mark for the rest of the field to chase, and was eventually eclipsed by Mike Conway in the #7 Toyota TS050 just past the hour mark.
As the track began to clear and rubber in, conditions warmed up, and a string of quicker laps arrived from the pair of Toyotas: Kazuki Nakajima ended the session on top, with his time of 3:21.656 enough to edge out Kamui Kobayashi’s 3:21.990 come the chequered flag. The #1 was unable to improve, with Menezes’ time remaining their top mark. Interestingly, the Rebellion was the fastest car in the first sector to the tune of almost half a second.
All five LMP1 cars managed significant running of over 30 laps, with the #3 Rebellion and #4 ByKolles machine completing the top 5.
LMP2 was lead by Kenta Yamashita in the #33 High Class Racing ORECA 07; his time of a 3:29.873 just eclipsing Geido van der Garde’s effort by 0.045 of a second. The Racing Team Nederland driver set the early benchmark with a 3:29.918 which stood for almost an hour and a half before Yamashita eclipsed it in the last 20 minutes.
The JOTA Sport #38 ORECA rounded out the top three, just over a second behind. The #29 Racing Team Nederland machine, however, ended the session in the gravel trap at the Porsche Curves, with Nyck De Vries coming unstuck with 8 minutes remaining in the session.
De Vries’ moment was the third interruption of the session, which saw Race Control use incidents as opportunities to practice the various race neutralisation procedures. A 7-minute Safety Car interruption to clear debris from the pit entry the only incident in the first hour, while Slow Zones were employed for De Vries’s moment, as well as to allow movement of the #78 Proton Competition car who came to a stop at the second chicane.
The major interruption of the session was a red flag shown with 70 minutes remaining to recover the beached #89 Team Project 1 machine. Steve Brooks found the gravel trap on the entry to Indianapolis, requiring extraction, providing officials with the perfect reason to implement Slow Zone and then Red Flag procedures. The 89 managed to return to the pits under its own steam once it was pulled back onto the track.
In GTE-Pro, Aston Martin Racing were the early pace-setters with Nikki Thiim setting the early benchmark. The two Aston Martin Racing Vantages were not troubled at the head of the field, improving their times and maintaining a 1-2 status quo throughout the session. Alex Lynn in the #97 topped the session with a 3:53.930, while Thiim improved his time in the #95 to a 3:54.992 to finish the session second.
The quartet of Ferraris were the next best-placed GTE-Pro cars, with James Calado’s 3:55.186 good enough for third, while the two GTE-Pro Porsches were more than 1.5 seconds further back.
GTE-Am was also topped by the Aston Martin Racing team; Ross Gunn in the #98 car rocketing up the time sheets just before the call of the slow zone to finish the session with a 3:55.484, as the fourth placed GTE time overall. His time eclipsed the best time from Tom Blomqvist in the #72 Hub Auto Racing Ferrari 488 by almost a second, with Kei Cozzolino in the #70 MR Racing Ferrari 488 a further 3 tenths behind. The lead GTE-Am Porsche was 6th placed Matt Campbell in the #77 Dempsey Proton 911, who at one stage was looking to improve on his lap time, but aborted his lap and returned to the pits.
Most cars managed a trouble-free session, with all 59 cars managing at least 15 laps on track. The Eurointernational #11 Ligier was the last car to set a lap time, spending the first half a session in the garage. There was a minor glitch in the #3 Rebellion R13 which was observed to be slow on track with around 20 minutes left, and the #26 G-Drive Aurus 01 suffered a right-front brake failure just after the resumption of the session. Race control cited many cars for track limit violations, with the #66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari given a 10 minute stop-and-go penalty for repeated infractions.
What is clear at this stage is that the track is still far from optimum running conditions, with lap times seconds away from what was observed in FP1 last year.
Thursday action continues with a three-hour FP2 session at 14:00 local time, then the first Qualifying session at 17:15 local time.
Image courtesy of Toyota Gazoo Racing
