On a cool, cloudy Wednesday afternoon at La Sarthe, on-track action got underway for the 92nd annual 24 Hours of Le Mans, beginning with Free Practice 1.
And it was three-time Le Mans overall winner Brendon Hartley who set the early benchmark aboard the #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid, just ahead of Qualifying Practice later this evening.
With 50 minutes left in the three-hour session, Hartley laid down a best lap of 3:26.013 that wouldn’t be surpassed. That’s over a second and a half quicker than the top time Hartley set in FP1 last year, in the same base vehicle – and almost a full second up on Kevin Estre’s best time from Sunday testing.
Hartley displaced the Hypercar category’s newest overall winner, Callum Ilott, from the top spot. Ilott set his best lap of 3:26.610 aboard the #12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche 963, after only 20 minutes of running. The #12 Porsche finished with the second-best time.
Dries Vanthoor surprised with the third-fastest time in the #15 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8, at 3:26.671. It could have been a bit better – a 3:26.204 set the lap before, had been taken off the board for a track limits violation.
The #99 Proton Competition Porsche of Julien Andlauer went fourth-fastest on a 3:26.891, followed by the #7 Toyota of Nyck de Vries who led FP1 early on with a 3:26.918.
Alex Lynn was sixth-fastest in the blue #2 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, but he had drama with about 20 minutes to go when he spun off at Tertre Rouge, and gently nosed into the tyre barriers to the left. This brought out a brief red flag – the second of FP1 – but Lynn drove back to the garage, got a nose change, and returned to the track with around ten minutes left.
Robin Frijns was seventh in the #20 WRT BMW art car, followed by Antonio Fuoco, only eighth in the #50 Ferrari AF Corse 499P – in a session where the top eight were covered by less than a second, setting the scene for what should be an electric race to secure a spot in Hyperpole on Thursday.
The two Alpine A424s were ninth and tenth – the #36 of Nicolas Lapierre, ahead of the #35 of Charles Milesi. Halfway into the session, the #35 stopped at the pit exit as the returning Ferdinand Habsburg reported a lack of throttle input despite the engine running, but the car was able to continue.
A procedural check also held the #63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx SC63 in the garage for the first hour – it too, was able to resume running afterwards.
The #2 Cadillac and both Ferrari AF Corse works cars were among eight cars that all received three-minute penalty stops for entering the fast lane in the pits before the start – and before they were allowed by Race Director Eduardo Freitas. As FP1 progressed, the two Toyotas, and the #99 Proton Porsche received five-minute penalty stops for slow zone violations – a penalty that the #11 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 received twice for separate infringements.
In LMP2, all the early lap times were set in a flurry right at the beginning of the session. It was Louis Deletraz in the #14 AO Racing by TF ORECA 07 that topped the times, with a 3:34.245, just ahead of James Allen in the #30 Duqueine Team car, followed by Ben Hanley in the #23 United Autosports USA ORECA.
The top five was rounded out by the #9 Proton Competition car, then the #22 United Autosport car. Amazingly, the top three cars were all LMP2-Pro/Am cars.
After the initial flurry, the majority of the session was dedicated to allowing the Silver and Bronze-rated drivers the chance to get significant laps under their belts. In the top three cars, PJ Hyett, John Falb, and Ben Keating spent the most time in the cars, compared to their Pro-rated teammates.
A few slow zones were caused by LMP2 cars: Rodrigo Sales spun the #65 Panis Racing car in the middle of the Dunlop Chicane, which saw that car back into the gravel and requiring extraction, while Ben Keating had a major moment on entry to the Porsche Curves, locking the wheels and spearing off, just coming to a stop before the barriers. He too required the assistance of the tow vehicle, under a Slow Zone.
A more serious problem for the #183 AF Corse car, which parked up in the Forest Esses. Nico Varrone had the front right suspension of the ORECA collapse, bringing him to an abrupt halt just next to the access road.
Very late on in the session, the #47 COOL Racing car of Frederic Vesti parked up on the inside of the first chicane, bringing out a Slow Zone to assist in recovery.
Apart from the #183 AF Corse Oreca, most cars ran trouble-free, and set a significant amount of laps in the first session of the weekend.
There were no heroics until the dying seconds in LMGT3 as the field found its feet.
Esteban Masson’s last gasp flyer of 3:57.808 put the #87 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RCF LMGT3 on top of the timing screens by two-tenths, despite an earlier five-minute Stop/Go for his team-mates Jack Hawksworth and Takeshi Kimura’s track limits infringements.
Until Masson’s late lunge, Brendan Iribe’s 3:58.770 was the fastest time for most of the session. Team-mate Ollie Millroy was enthusing about the #70 Inception Racing McLaren LMGT3 Evo’s performance on the Goodyear rubber. Gregoire Saucy’s #59 United Autosports McLaren made for a close McLaren showing, the Swiss driver’s 3:58.975 fractionally ahead of the Heart of Racing’s #27 Aston Martin’s 3:59.058.
This was despite the Vantage AMR attending to a driveshaft oil leak and later stalling just out of the pits.
Two-tenths back was GR Racing’s Ferrari 296 LM GT3, although the #86 car needed recovery after Michael Wainwright pulled up at the first Mulsanne Chicane.
“I had a complete loss of power, tried the reboot and there was nothing. I’m just glad it happened now and not during the race,” remarked Wainwright.
Both Akkodis ASP Team Lexus entries had shown well until Arnold Robin’s #78 RC F LMGT3 pulled up just after Mulsanne Corner, which triggered the red flag halfway through the session – around the same time that the #35 Alpine stopped at pit exit.
The other minor drama was with the #88 Ford Mustang, having a fuel injector and exhaust system fire due to over-fuelling which kept it in the Proton Competition mid-way through the session.
All other entries had a good lap count as times came down, the majority of the field in the 3:59’s, closely matched, just six cars lapping north of four minutes.
Conspicuous by their absence from the top half of the times were the #92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche, the #31 WRT BMW and the #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini.
Images © Andrew ‘Skippy’ Hall, Pedro, David Lord / DSC
