Reserves hit the track
All bar one of the additional drivers rostered for the Test Day actually turned laps during the day.
In Hypercar, Toyota Racing ran Esteban Masson, Jamie Chadwick turned laps for Genesis Magma Racing, whilst BMW M Team WRT ran Phillipp Eng but not Marco Wittmann.
In LMP2, Sami Meguetounif turned laps for TDS Racing in both the #14 and #29, whilst Laurens Vanthoor, as revealed by DSC yesterday, did run for United Autosports in the #22. Ollie Caldwell turned ten laps in the #25 Algarve Pro Racing car as well.
Romain Dumas, meanwhile, was on site for his own #48 RD Limited squad after returning from Pikes Peak Practice overnight. He ran eight laps and cleared all required administrative procedures, which he missed due to his absence at Pesage.
Across the day, the driver completing the most laps was #79 Iron Lynx AMG racer Johannes Zelger with 40 laps across both sessions. Louis Rousset completed most in LMP2 with 37 in the #29 Forestier Racing by Panis ORECA. Hypercar saw René Rast top the distance list, also with 37 laps in the #20 BMW.
Esnault (Peugeot): Hypercar field tighter than last year
17 of the 18 Hypercars set best times within 1.7 seconds over the two test sessions yesterday. Peugeot TotalEnergies’ team manager Emmanuel Esnault pointed out that the field is significantly closer than last year during his post-test media time.
“Last year I think 21 cars were within 4.3 seconds, and there are 18 this year within three seconds. It’s closer now. Everyone knows their cars better.
“We had a positive day, but you never know what others are doing. If you compare with previous years, the gap between the testing day and the laps in qualifying can be minus four or five seconds, and the jump can be quite big.
“I think our team has always been very clear, working without hiding anything. There is no game in hiding performance. What you have seen today is what we have extracted in terms of performance from the car. We have to work to make it better.”
On Peugeot’s expectations for Hyperpole and the race, he added: “Honestly, we have to be reasonable. The target is to have one car in Hyperpole. We know it will be tough. That’s our aim. We prefer to set reasonable targets.”
Peugeot driver Paul Di Resta also spoke on the hierarchy in Hypercar: “Looks like there are some cars that are very competitive. There are a few that we are looking… I’m not saying who, but there are a few cars that look stronger than us and the field.”
Martins lapping up his first Le Mans experience
It was a strong Test Day for Alpine, with the French team completing 131 laps with its A424S, covering over 1,785 kilometres on the Circuit de la Sarthe and setting times to go fourth and sixth in the combined rankings.
Among Alpine’s driver squad, it was an important day for young Victor Martins, who got his first taste of the Circuit de la Sarthe, setting a 3:27.017 during his 27-lap spell, putting him eighth in the combined driver lap time rankings.
“It was an incredible first day,” he said. “Discovering Le Mans is something special. The track is magnificent, and I really enjoyed driving at over 330 km/h between the trees on the Mulsanne straight. There are so many places I love, but every corner has its own unique characteristics and that little something extra. I think we did a good job today.
“The team put me in different situations to keep developing my skills here, and I already feel much more prepared. Now we need to take the time to analyse everything properly and understand it all so that we’re even better prepared for Wednesday and Thursday.”
Valkyrie “night-and-day different” at Le Mans
The pace of Aston Martin’s Valkyries was perhaps the biggest surprise of the Test Day. Tom Gamble topped the day with his best lap aboard the #007.
Speaking after the day’s running, the Briton explained that the car feels significantly better to drive at Le Mans compared to last year, when the programme was still in its infancy.
“Overall, a pretty successful day, you don’t know how you’ll be going into it against everyone,” Gamble said.
“This morning, the #009 was P4, we saw a strong pace straight away. Now we’re at the sharp end. There’s a lot of data to go through now. If we can stay like this for the race, we may be on the podium, but I’m not sure if the field has shown their hand completely or not.
“The car is night-and-day different to last year, balance is good, systems work well, it’s an absolute pleasure to drive.”
Data analysis underway!
Today and tomorrow, data engineers up and down the pit lane will be hard at work analysing the Test Day. Corvette factory driver Charlie Eastwood spoke about the importance of the off-days between testing and first practice on Wednesday.
“I think the main thing is that this track is so straight-line intense and these cars, especially the Corvette, generate such good downforce,” he said.
“Maximising that at this track is very hard. You want it to be nice and low at the end of the straight, but the straights are so long, so it just keeps getting lower and lower and lower. And then you obviously don’t want it super-low through Porsche Curves because it can start to get sketchy.
“There are so many people here supporting us – TF are here, GM are here, Pratt Miller are here. They put all that data together.
“Even speaking to my engineer Sunday, instead of taking the raw lap time or raw top speed, we just make sure all of our ride-height figures are correct, and the rest will work itself out next week. You at least need to make sure when you’re looking through all your sensors and making sure everything is where you think it is… That’s what they’re going to crunch through.
“They give us so much information now, and we have so many key performance indexes and things that we can look at from the driving side. It’s tough. I did three three-lap runs (Sunday)… nine laps. I’ve only seen Tertre Rouge nine times in anger. I’ve only seen Porsche Out nine times in anger. It’s nowhere near enough to say, ‘Right, I’m absolutely dialled in.’
“So there’s always bits to work on. They’ll give us all that information, and we’ll come back on Wednesday in an even better position than where we finished Sunday and push on.”
Toyota-APR clash caught on camera
The clash between Jake Hughes’ spinning #25 Algarve ORECA and the #8 Toyota of Ryo Hirakawa could have had significantly more serious consequences for both teams.
Long-time DSC contributor David Legangneux was sitting trackside as the clash occurred when Hughes spun on his out lap on cold tyres into the path of the TR010.
As David’s images show, the Toyota was launched into the air by the impact, suffering impact damage down much of the left side of the car.
The ORECA, meanwhile, suffered a broken toe link and damaged bodywork – but both cars were repaired in time to return to the track for the afternoon session.
Track impressions
A section of the Circuit de la Sarthe has been resurfaced ahead of this year’s race, covering the second Mulsanne Chicane, through to Mulsanne Corner.
Peugeot’s Paul Di Resta was positive about the state of the circuit at this early stage of the event and the section of track that has received attention.
“Whenever they resurface parts of the track here, you get massively high grip,” he said to reporters. “It’s got better at the second chicane, it’s really grippy, it’s a bit flatter.
“And the track hasn’t been that bad (dirty) in the past couple of years. They’ve got the series running around before we start, so it’s not horrendous at the start.
“Between the start and finish of the Test Day last year, there was a second (in lap time improvement). And this year, I got in after 20 minutes, and my very first timed lap was the quickest lap our car did in the session. It’s not as bad as it used to be.”
Farano grateful to be back at Le Mans after missed chance in ’23
John Farano is one of the drivers who should have been part of the Centenary 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2023, invited as the reigning IMSA Jim Trueman Award winner, given to the top Bronze driver in LMP2. But a back injury he suffered at Laguna Seca just a month before the race kept him on the sidelines.
Three years later, Farano will finally make his second start at Le Mans, driving for DKR Engineering with Renger van der Zande and Sebastian Alvarez.
“It feels fantastic. It’s a great feeling, of course, to be back,” Farano said at Scrutineering. “Last time I was here, it was in 2019. We didn’t finish the race, but it was a wonderful time. But – first time here, you never know what to expect.
“So I’m much more prepared this time, knowing what the event is all about. And I think the team has really done a great job to prepare us as well.”
DKR’s black, orange, and blue ORECA carries sponsorship from Farano’s company Tower Events, and in some ways, he sees many similarities between the Luxembourg-based team and his own Tower Motorsports squad in IMSA.
“One of the things I really liked is they’re very much like my own team in IMSA. I own my team there, and it’s a small, one-car team. You can say it’s family-run, let’s say. And DKR represented those values as well. So I think they really bring a personal feeling for me to be back here,” Farano said of his current squad.
Pitted against some very familiar faces from IMSA, such as PJ Hyett, George Kurtz, and Tobias Lütke, LMP2 Pro/Am will feel a little bit like an IMSA meeting in some respects.
Farano is looking to be back behind the wheel of his favourite car, the ORECA 07, so what is it that draws him back to LMP2 competition every year? “One of the things is the balance of performance, because we’re not subject to that. It just makes life a lot easier as a team,” he admitted. “We don’t have to worry about Monday morning battles with committees and so forth. But the car is the best car I’ve driven. I come from a GT background, I only started racing prototypes in 2017, and I’ve never looked back.”
Roos: Everything is working “as we expected” at BMW
BMW M Team WRT had a successful test day, sticking to its run plan and, with its #15 M Hybrid V8, logging the most laps of any Hypercar entry.
Amongst this plan was a decision to utilise all three Michelin slick compounds.
“We tried all three compounds, because this is the best time to get an idea of how the tyres are,” explained Andreas Roos, Head of BMW M Motorsport, before explaining that the conditions weren’t optimal for the Hard compound.
“If it doesn’t get hotter than this, then it’s most likely difficult to get a hard tyre into the right window. We expected this, but we tried all three tyres. We also tried to maximise the stint lengths with the tyres to see how many stints we can get out of the tyres, and get a proper idea about the tyre degradation.”
Roos also confirmed that, at this early stage, the Evo ‘joker’ package applied to the M Hybrid V8 at the start of 2026 is behaving as planned around the Circuit de la Sarthe.
“We have to do some fine-tuning, but at the moment everything is working as we expected from the car,” he said.
Pictures: David Legangneux and Peter May
