The #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 HYBRID topped the first session of the Le Mans Test Day, with Kamui Kobayashi setting the car’s best time.
His flying lap, a 3:28.467, came early on, in between a red-flag interruption and a safety car test.
The #6 Porsche Penske 963 with Kevin Estre at the wheel came closest with a 3:29.270, marginally faster than the #20 WRT BMW, which slotted in third with a 3:29.433.
Further down the order, the sister #8 Toyota ended up sixth, 1.3 seconds off the #7, but completed 36 laps, the most in the class.
In LMP2, it was the #28 IDEC Sport ORECA that led the field with a 3:37.044, ahead of the #22 United Autosports ORECA and the #14 AO by TF Racing ‘Spike’ liveried 07. IMSA GTP star Louis Deletraz set the 3:37.3 in the #14 to better the #34 Inter Europol Competition ORECA’s 3:37.762 before the #22’s time came in late on.
LMGT3 saw the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus finish on top with a 4:00.108, ahead of the sister #87 RC F LMGT3, #31 WRT BMW and the #59 United Autosports McLaren.
It was a glorious early June morning at the Circuit de la Sarthe with clear skies and temperatures in the low 20s at the start of the first track session in the build-up to the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The conditions were ideal for teams and drivers new to the circuit looking to get up to speed, and for race control which tested various processes and procedures.
In the field, there are 38 rookies, 10 of which are entered in the Hypercar class. This first session was a good opportunity to tick off the required 10 laps to qualify for the event next week.
Times tumbled quicker than last year, as the fastest Hypercar lap time was two seconds up on the best time from the first Test Day session last year.
The session ended under red flag after the #37 Cool Racing car came to a halt at marshals post 32, on the exit of the Porsche Curves, with two minutes remaining. Reports came in that Lorenzo Fluxa (who is ok) had suffered front left, and rear-end damage from the off.
A team source told DSC that it is believed Fluxa had the car unsettled by one of a series of bumps in that section of the track, lifted off to correct it but lost the rear end of the car. The impact came front-left, the car spinning and damaging the rear clip. The chassis is believed to be ‘ok’, but it is not clear if it will make it out for the afternoon session.
Otherwise, the session ran with no major incidents, with most cars getting significant running across all categories.
However, there were three further interruptions to the session to note.
The first was a slow zone that turned into a red flag after 40 minutes of running to recover the #3 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, which came to a stop on the run down to Indianapolis. The car was on an out lap, with a fuel line issue given as the reason for the car stopping.
By that point, the top Hypercar lap times were already faster than the corresponding session from last year – Laurens Vanthoor in the #6 Penske Porsche 963 setting a 3:29.666, ahead of Jose Maria Lopez in the #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 and the #94 Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8 with Stoffel Vandoorne at the wheel.
The stoppage lasted 13 minutes, with the track back to green with just over two hours remaining. The field was given the chance to simulate a ‘race’ session for half an hour, before another interruption using the safety car, to undergo the new safety car procedure for 2024.
The safety car procedure is the same as last year’s – three safety cars to neutralise the field that then gets combined, before allowing for a pass-around – but without the class sorting and drop back that extended time spent under caution last year.
At the half-session point, it was Kamui Kobayashi who had topped the session with the #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010, with a 3:28.467, with the sister car, the #8 Toyota with Sebastian Buemi, also under the 3:30’s. Third was Andre Lotterer in the #6 Porsche Penske 963, who had also hit a 3:29, with a 3:29.2.
In LMP2 it was the IDEC Sport #28 car that led the field, with a 3:37.044, slower than last year’s first test day session by six tenths, followed by the #25 Algarve Pro machine, and the #22 United Autosport LMP2 car. At the top in LMP2 Pro/Am was the #47 Cool Racing car, with a 3:40.299.
LMGT3 was headed by the #31 WRT BMW M4 on a 4:00.964, ahead of the #27 Heart Of Racing Aston Martin, and the #59 United Autosports McLaren. The LMGT3 cars at this stage were running around five seconds slower than the corresponding GTE lap times from the first test session last year.
In the half-hour between the red flag and safety car, most cars completed significant running on track. The exceptions were the #3 Cadillac, which was still being worked on, the #19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63 which exited the pit lane just before the call of the safety car, and the #33 DKR Engineering ORECA 07.
The #33 DKR Engineering ORECA was the second LMP2 car to suffer a front suspension failure after the #47 Cool Racing car had a similar failure in the early running.
Polling teams in the lane, it seemed likely that the LMP2 runners were electing to run older components on the car for the test, resulting in some failures. The #33 DKR Engineering car was back out on track behind the safety car.
The track returned to green after almost 40 minutes of Safety Car, and 48 minutes remaining in the session, but only 20 minutes later, there was another interruption.
A Full Course Yellow was called to recover the #87 Akkodis ASP Lexus of Takeshi Kimura, who was stopped at the exit of the Dunlop Chicane, allowing race control to complete the full set of neutralisation procedures in the first session of the day.
It was only a short interruption, with the track returning to green with 25 minutes left. There was another brief yellow flag at the same section of track five minutes later, for the #15 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor, but that was cleared without requiring neutralisation.
However, the #15 did not return to the track, and was recovered off the circuit where it would sit until the end of the session. It was then seen on the back of a flatbed being transported to the paddock, with no apparent physical damage.
BMW later explained to DSC that a mechanical issue with the car has prompted the team to change the car’s engine between sessions on safety grounds.
There were a number of penalties given to drivers for continually exceeding track limits throughout the session.
The #10 Vector Sport car of Ryan Cullen picked up a 5-minute stop/go penalty, while David Heinemeier Hansson was given first a 5-minute stop and go, then a 10-minute stop and go, for repeated infractions.
The #66 JMW Motorsports Ferrari will miss the first 5 minutes of the afternoon session after Giacomo Petrobelli picked up a 5-minute stop and hold late in the session.
Image courtesy of Toyota Gazoo Racing
