24 Hours of Le Mans – Free Practice 1: Toyota shows its colors
The Toyota number 8 set the fastest time in the first free practice session. The two Glickenhaus cars remain close, while Alpine is further behind.
On this Wednesday at 2 o’clock, the horses were released. As soon as the green flag was waved, a large number of cars entered in this 90th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans took to the track.
If it was the LMP2 and GT cars that had their names at the top of the leaderboard, the Toyota hypercars quickly set things right. Then, the Glickenhaus cars got the better of the Japanese cars, which held the lead for a large part of the three-hour session.
After some disruptions caused by incidents on the track, including the wheel coming off the WRT Team’s car at the first chicane on the Hunaudières straight, along with a problem on the Vector Sport at the Chapelle, Brendon Hartley accelerated.
The former Formula 1 driver, for Toro Rosso, took the lead with a time of 3’29”441, with still a little over half an hour of driving remaining. He set the best time, almost half a second ahead of the Glickenhaus 709 and six tenths ahead of the 708.
Alpine has faced more difficulties this session as Nicolas Lapierre achieves the 7th overall time (with two LMP2 cars in between the Toyota 8 and the Alpine). He is trailing by more than 2.6 seconds from the fastest lap.
The end of the session was marked by the off-track excursion of the Algrave Pro Racing number 45 at the junction. The LMP2 crashed into the tyre barrier, completely destroying the front right of the car.
The Hypercar ranking
| Position | Times | Driver | |
| 1 | 1 | 3’29”441 | Toyota – Brendon Hartley |
| 2 | 2 | 3’29”917 | Glickenhaus – Richard Westbrook |
| 3 | 3 | 3’30”102 | Glickenhaus – Olivier Pla |
| 4 | 4 | 3’30”403 | Toyota – Jose Maria Lopez |
| 5 | 5 | 3’32”075 | Alpine – Nicolas Lapierre |
