24 Hours of Le Mans – Free Practice 4: Ferrari still in the lead, Peugeot facing issues

The final free practice session of the week started for an hour of work, Thursday evening. Both Ferraris could boast of having outperformed Toyota, but it was necessary to get back to work.

In these 24 hours of Le Mans, which promise to be incredibly close, reliability will be a key factor. Peugeot got off to a strong start, with Paul Di Resta on the No. 93 car. The Scottish driver was followed by Esteban Gutierrez’s Glickenhaus 709 and Tom Dillmann’s Vanwall.

The Toyota and Porsche remained discreet, while the Cadillac 311 from Action Express Racing tore up the tarmac: Alexander Sims, behind the wheel, did multiple laps before the Ferrari N°51, holder of the pole position, regained the lead.

On the LMP2 side, Racing Team Turkey (No.923) was in the lead at the first third of the session, thanks to Dries Vanthoor. The main contenders, including WRT, Idec Sport (on pole), and Prema, remained steady.

The GTE-Am, on the other hand, followed the same pattern: the Ferrari N°66 from JMW Motorsport was leading the discussions, while the Corvette, who started from pole position, was quietly making its way without showing too much.

Half an hour calm, a Peugeot at a stop

At the start of the session, the fuel levels were very different from one team to another, which notably explained the temporary 2nd place of the Glickenhaus N°709, still driven by Esteban Gutierrez. The Mexican, former F1 driver for Sauber and Haas, lapped in 3’28″278, one second behind the leading Ferrari.

The Nascar from Hendrick Motorsport (No. 24) always demonstrated its devilishly superior pace compared to the GT cars. Jenson Button took the wheel to fine-tune the Chevrolet, maintaining consistent lap times (around 3’51”).

After the last half hour, there was a slow zone before the second chicane at Hunaudières due to the stop of the Peugeot No. 93 driven by Jean-Eric Vergne. The troubles do not seem to want to spare the Lion’s Hypercar.

Nothing has really changed in terms of rankings, as the hierarchy of LMP2 has remained the same for a while now. However, things have remained complicated for Alpine, whose best representative was the N°36 driven by Charles Milesi.

The red flag was then waved to ensure the best possible clearing of the Sochaux car, 20 minutes before the end. The session resumed in the last ten minutes, but was extended by an additional fifteen minutes to make up for the lost time.

The lap times dropped as the temperatures decreased, and everyone worked on their pace with longer relays.