24 Heures du Mans – Test day: Ferrari gets off to a perfect start in first session

The opportunity to take the temperature. The first session of the Le Mans 24 Hours test day allowed most of the drivers to try out this track. Some test drivers were able to take the wheel to start tuning the various cars.

Aside from a few clouds in the sky over Sarthe, this session was not disrupted by rain. However, the track was very tricky, somewhat as usual.

After an hour of driving, the LMP2 #34 from Inter Europol got caught in the Porsche curves. The prototype hit quite hard from the rear. The driver was not injured, but the car sustained some evidently significant damage, as it remained in the pit until the end of the session.

The lap times were very modest this first morning of running at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. For a large part of the session, the Hypercars remained beyond the 3:30 mark. Only a few brave ones dared to go under this limit.

Once the safety car procedure, caused by the off-track incident of the LMP2 #34, was completed, Robert Kubica lined up the sectors to take the session record in 3:27’010”. The Pole in the Ferrari #83 relegated the Cadillac #311 to nearly two seconds behind.

The Toyota #8 increased its pace in the last minutes, but not enough to compete with the Ferrari from the private team AF Corse. It is worth noting that 16 of the 21 Hypercars went under the 3:30 mark. However, this session does not truly reflect the real performances of each team and driver. Some are holding back to avoid being penalized by the BoP.

In the LMP2 category, it was the #16 RLR M Sport that set the best benchmark during the first three hours of running. As usual, the #87 Lexus from the Akkodis ASP team was the fastest in the first session of the test day.