On a sunny, warm Wednesday afternoon in Le Mans, 62 cars took to the track for the first official Free Practice session of the 93rd annual Le Mans 24 Hours. Raffaele Marciello and the #15 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 were the first combination to enter the course for the afternoon’s three-hour practice.
But the driver and car on top after those three hot hours of running was local hero Sebastien Bourdais and the #38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R. After co-driver Earl Bamber spun off at the Ford Chicane in the first hour, and after spending significant time in the garage repairing a piece of delaminated carbon fibre later on, Bourdais shot to the top of the time sheets with a 3:25.148 lap time with 35 minutes remaining.
Reigning Le Mans overall champion Antonio Fuoco put the #50 Ferrari AF Corse 499P set the early benchmark, with a 3:25.302 on his first flying lap out of the garage.
Fuoco slotted in second ahead of 2024 polesitter Kevin Estre in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, who was third-fastest in Hypercar thanks to a mid-session improvement.
Behind them was the black #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 HYBRID in fourth place, then the #5 Penske Porsche in fifth, the #12 JOTA Cadillac in sixth, the #4 Penske Porsche in seventh, and the #15 WRT BMW in eighth.
Add in the ninth-ranked #35 Alpine Endurance Team A424, and that puts six different manufacturers in the top ten – all covered by less than a second – leading into the first Qualifying session, scheduled to start at 6:45 PM CET.
LMP2’s best time belonged to the #16 RLR MSport ORECA 07-Gibson, one of the LMP2 Pro/Am entries driven by veteran Patrick Pilet, who set a 3:36.888 lap in the opening minutes.
In second was the top ‘standard’ LMP2, the #43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA. Algarve Pro Racing’s #45 Pro/Am car was third, ahead of the #48 VDS Panis Racing car in fourth, and the #29 TDS Racing car in fifth.
And in LMGT3, the #78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F LMGT3 of Jack Hawksworth set the early pace with a best lap of 3:57.248.
The Lexus led the #54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3, in second, followed by the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage LMGT3 in third.
Behind them were two more Ferraris – the #193 from Ziggo Sport Tempesta and the #21 from Vista AF Corse.
The approach to Dunlop Corner was a tricky spot for some of the LMGT3 Bronze drivers. First, Ryan Hardwick spun his #92 Manthey Porsche 911 on his outlap.
40 minutes into the session, Custodio Toledo spun his #150 Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari and beached his car in the gravel, necessitating a Slow Zone. Toledo later picked up a five-minute stop-and-go penalty for his car after exceeding track limits at least five times.
At the 75-minute mark, Stephen Grove in the #63 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG LMGT3 spun and crashed head-on entering the Dunlop Chicane. The incident brought out a ten-minute red flag.
Grove walked away from the impact and was checked and released at the medical centre. But the silver Mercedes-AMG is questionable, at best, to appear in Qualifying later this evening, after it sustained heavy front-end damage.
Even the Pros had their issues keeping their cars on the straight and narrow. Colin Braun spun on approach to Arnage, leaving the #24 Nielsen Racing ORECA stranded in the gravel and bringing out a brief Full Course Yellow in the first few minutes.
In Qualifying, the top 15 Hypercars, and the top 12 in LMP2 and LMGT3 will advance to tomorrow’s two-stage Hyperpole.
Images © dailysportscar.com
