Test Day Sunday has wrapped up in preparation for next week’s 94th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, under clear, sunny skies on a beautiful late spring day in La Sarthe.
In the second test session, the fastest time in the Hypercar class was set by the #007 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie, with less than a second covering the top ten cars from seven different manufacturers.
Tom Gamble turned the racing green #007 Aston Martin’s best time on a set of soft compound tyres; his best lap was a 3:26.293, set just over an hour into the three-hour afternoon session. This was the quickest time throughout Sunday’s six hours of on-track activity.
Following its accident in the last hour of the first test session, the #8 Toyota Racing TR010-Hybrid was able to enjoy a trouble-free afternoon, capped off by Brendon Hartley setting a 3:26.827 on medium compound tyres to go second-fastest.
In third place was the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R – its best lap was a 3:26.853, also set on medium tyres by Norman Nato.
The two Alpine Endurance Team A424s rounded out the top five, the #35 ahead of the #36, followed by the leading car of the morning session, the #101 WTR Cadillac in sixth.
“It’s a good first day here in Le Mans, we managed to get through our plan,” said Charles Milesi, the fastest driver in the #35 Alpine this afternoon. “It hasn’t been easy with slow zones and safety car procedures that cost everyone time. But we can feel the car is a step forward from last year, especially in the Porsche Curves. The new tyre compounds are also helping with the car’s consistency. This is just the beginning though; we have to improve with what we have today on last year.”
The leading Ferrari was the #51 AF Corse 499P in ninth, but it was also the source of the most significant drama during this final test session. Alessandro Pier Guidi slid off the track on the approach to Indianapolis corner, though, the 2023 overall winner was able to drive back to the pits under power without any significant external damage.
BMW M Team WRT’s #15 M Hybrid V8 was only 16th fastest on the leaderboard, but turned the most laps of the session with 49, for a one-day total of 87 laps, the most out of all 62 cars on Sunday.
In LMP2, IDEC Sport and Job van Uitert led the way as the white-and-red-striped #28 ORECA 07-Gibson set a 3:35.344 with less than 20 minutes left to go, putting it at the top of the board. He was one of two LMP2 drivers to eclipse the three-minute, 36-second barrier, joined only by Mathias Beche, who set a 3:35.519 in the #14 TDS Racing ORECA.
Behind them was the #183 AF Corse ORECA 07-Gibson, which spent virtually all of this test session at or near the top of LMP2. Matthieu Vaxivière set a top time of 3:36.009 to go third-fastest.
The #29 Forestier Racing by Panis ORECA had the fourth-fastest time, while Duqueine Team’s #30 car went fifth-fastest. Inter Europol Competition’s #343 car turned 42 laps to lead all LMP2 cars in the session, and had the sixth-best time.
As teams and drivers began to push the performance envelope, several cars received five-minute stop-and-go penalties for multiple track limits infringements. Three LMP2 cars received this penalty more than once; the #9 Proton Competition, #29 Forestier Racing by Panis, and #222 United Autosports cars all had to serve two 300-second penalty stops towards the end of the day.
Horst Felbermayr Jnr also went past the limit when he spun his #44 Proton Competition ORECA off into the gravel at the Dunlop Chicane, though he would be able to recover to allow the #44 crew to proceed with the rest of its day with no other major issues.
Also of note: Porsche works driver Laurens Vanthoor turned his first laps in the #22 United Autosports car as a last-minute addition to the Test Day entry list, and RD Limited owner/driver Romain Dumas has returned from Pikes Peak and done his first laps to begin preparations for his 24th Le Mans 24.
And in LMGT3, Vista AF Corse’s #54 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo set the fastest time, which was a 3:56.646 set by Silver specialist Francesco Castellacci, in the silver and red Ferrari. The #54 Ferrari also turned the most laps of all the GT cars this afternoon with 42.
That put the Ferrari less than one-hundredth of a second ahead of the #91 Manthey DK Engineering Porsche 911 GT3 R in second place, its best time was a 3:56.655 set by Timur Boguslavskiy, who’ll continue a trend of fast Silver drivers occupying the top places.
In the yellow #33 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, Jonny Edgar – another ‘super Silver’ – set a 3:56.885 to put the car third on the leaderboard.
13 Autosport’s Corvette was fourth-fastest to end the session, followed by the #69 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO.
Race week officially kicks off Wednesday afternoon with the first Free Practice session, beginning at 2:00 PM CET (local time).
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