Algarve Pro Racing’s Jake Hughes led the way in the opening Free Practice session of the 2026 European Le Mans Series, held at a sunny Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The debutant, who set the pre-season test’s fastest time, reeled off a 1:29.720 aboard his #25 ORECA 07 – Gibson, shortly after the resumption from the sole Red Flag which interrupted the 90 minutes of running.
IDEC Sport’s Paul-Loup Chatin was the only other driver to go below the 1:30-mark, after setting a 1:29.925 shortly after Hughes’ best effort.
The #43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA of Tom Dillmann was third fastest, ahead of the #37 CLX Motorsport entry, with the best LMP2 Pro/Am runner, TDS Racing’s #14 ORECA, fifth overall.
Sami Meguetounif set a 1:30.517 for the French squad, finishing the session just ahead of the sister, TDS-run #29 Forestier Racing by Panis LMP2.
Second in LMP2 Pro/Am, 0.109 seconds behind Meguetounif, went to the #19 Rossa Racing by Virage ORECA of Manuel Espirito Santo, ahead of the #30 Duqueine Team, #88 Proton Competition and #3 DKR Engineering efforts.
Henry Cubides Olarte was fastest in LMP3 aboard Inter Europol Competition’s #13 Ligier JS P325 – Toyota. The Colombian first moved to the top of the class with a 1:38.249, which cleared the benchmark from Team Virage’s Daniel Nogales by 0.623 seconds, before improving to a 1:38.236 shortly after.
Second in LMP3, 0.584 seconds behind, was the #85 R-ace GP Duqueine of Hugo Schwarze, with Nogales’ time good enough to place #8 Ligier third at the chequered flag. The #35 Ultimate and #5 Rinaldi Racing Ligiers completed the top five.
And in LMGT3, the new Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo locked out the top four positions. Factory driver Daniel Serra was fastest in the #57 Kessel Racing entry, having set a 1:41.577 early on.
This put the Brazilian 0.413 seconds ahead of Lorcan Hanafin in the #86 GR Racing car, with the #51 and #50 AF Corse 296 LMGT3 Evos third and fourth respectively.
Best of the rest was the #23 United Autosports McLaren LMGT3 Evo, following a 1:42.167 from Wayne Boyd.
The fastest times all came at the beginning of the session, before the focus turned to race running in the heat of the day.
Nielsen Racing’s #27 ORECA triggered the Red Flag, when Alex Quinn pulled off in the middle sector just three minutes into the session, after hearing an alarm following an oil leak. The clean-up process took around 20 minutes, with 10 minutes added on to the session to compensate.
The other incident of note befell the #3 DKR Engineering ORECA, which brought out a brief Full Course Yellow when it stopped on the approach to Turn 10.
The next full-field running will be in Free Practice 2 tomorrow, at 10:10 CEST, after the 30-minute collective test for Bronze drivers later this afternoon.
