Le Mans Wednesday Notebook

***BMW M Team WRT team principal Vincent Vosse expressed his delight with Dries Vanthoor’s session-topping time in Qualifying Practice on Wednesday evening, as the Belgian driver turned the one-hour session’s best lap of 3:24.465.

***Vosse told Sportscar365: “At the end, it’s a good sign and a good feeling. It doesn’t mean a lot but it means we are capable to do it over one lap. In terms of doing it for 24 hours on a longer stint, we will see. But we will take it! It’s a good feeling for all the hard work that BMW and the team has made the last years.”

***On his chart-topping effort, Vanthoor himself commented: “After the first few races and the sessions we had so far, to be on pole was for sure unexpected. But the car was really good to drive. It doesn’t mean a lot, but it’s positive we can be in the top eight somewhere. We’ll see what happens tomorrow [in Hyperpole]. It will be difficult, but we will try again and see where we end up.”

***Vosse was less impressed with BMW’s failure to get a car into the top eight in LMGT3, as Maxime Martin ended up 12th-fastest in the best of the M4 GT3s. “It’s embarrassing,” said Vosse. “We are losing one second in sector two. I’m not talking about BoP, it can maybe be on the braking. But there are long straights, and it’s the fourth race we are off. I’m not happy.”

***Sebastien Bourdais, who took the No. 3 Cadillac V-Series.R into second place in qualifying with a best lap of 3:24.642, described his effort as “not too shabby for a 45-year-old.” The Frenchman added: “I’m really happy for the whole team. It was really difficult conditions. The first attempt I said ‘let’s go’ and didn’t back off. I got unlucky in the last sector, lost there-tenths because of a P2 car, but nevertheless a really solid lap.”

***Stellantis Motorsport boss Jean-Marc Finot meanwhile was sanguine about Peugeot’s failure to get a car into Hyperpole after Jean-Eric Vergne ended up 15th-fastest in the No. 93 9X8.

***Finot said: “We are not happy with the pace, we would have loved to have been faster. However, it’s still very close because we are only 1.7 seconds behind and there are already 12 cars in just one second. Le Mans is a very long track, and one second here is 0.4 seconds on other tracks. It’s our first time with this [revised] car on this track, so we will have some work to do on set-up.”

***Lamborghini Iron Lynx’s No. 63 SC63 had its chassis changed on Monday after a “strange vibration” was discovered on Sunday’s test day, per a manufacturer spokesperson. Wednesday’s Free Practice 1 was therefore spent debugging the systems on the brand-new car.

***Drivers representing a total of 34 nationalities are set to participate in this year’s race. France is the best-represented country with 27 drivers, followed by the UK with 25, Italy with 17, the United States with 14 and Denmark with 13.

***Richard Lietz is the most experienced driver on the grid, with the Manthey Porsche driver set for his 18th appearance this weekend. The only driver with a start prior to 2000 to their credit is Cadillac’s Sebastien Bourdais, who debuted in 1999.

***The eldest driver in the field is John Hartshorne (Proton Competition), who will be 67 years, 1 month and 27 days old on race day. The youngest will be debutant Conrad Laursen (Spirit of Race) at 18 years, 1 month and 4 days.

***Ferrari’s global head of endurance Antonello Coletta is hoping that tire warm-up doesn’t play a disproportionate role in deciding the outcome of this year’s Le Mans, which is set to feature relatively cool temperatures, with tire warmers now outlawed.

***Coletta also made a veiled reference to Porsche’s apparent ability to switch on its tires more quickly than the competition. He told assembled media: “It will be very important for the sporting authorities to check the temperatures of the tires when they are mounted on the cars. In past races we have already seen that someone has been very good at having warmer tires and on a track like this, where we lose over 15 seconds on the out lap with cold tires, it would be unacceptable not to have control.”

***He added: “Having a rule and not controlling it wouldn’t make much sense, especially if it determines performance and a very important difference in times. Losing 15 seconds in a lap is practically impossible to then recover it in a stint, and I wouldn’t want Le Mans to be decided by the warm-up of tires at night or in other difficult situations.”

***Valentino Rossi told reporters on Wednesday that he expects to continue with the same dual program with Team WRT in GT3 racing next year. The MotoGP legend, who makes his Le Mans debut this weekend, currently competes in both the FIA World Endurance Championship and Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS, with selected appearances in Intercontinental GT Challenge.

***Sportscar365 understands that Renger van der Zande is set to serve as the third driver in the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R for the WEC season-ending 8 Hours of Bahrain, alongside full-season pilots Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn. Two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou is serving as the third driver this weekend.

***AO by TF is utilizing several of AO Racing’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship crew including James Gue, Charles Hamm, Carly Panneton, Chaz Cleland and the team’s PR rep Kelly Brouillet.

***Circuit of The Americas is offering a two-for-one Father’s Day special ticket package for the Lone Star Le Mans, for three-day general admission tickets. The WEC returns to COTA for the first time since 2020 on Aug. 30-Sept. 1. as the sixth round of the world championship. The special ticket offer is valid through June 23.

***IMSA regulars Orey Fidani and Lars Kern will be in action during the pair of Road to Le Mans support races this weekend, sharing a Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3. Fidani currently leads the Bob Akin Bronze Cup championship, the winner of which will get an auto-invitation for next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

***Other notable names on the Road to Le Mans entry list include Sven Mueller aboard the No. 18 High Class Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R and former Audi factory driver Pierre Kaffer piloting a Racing Spirit of Leman Ligier JS P320 Nissan. The Swiss squad has also entered its No. 95 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo for Derek DeBoer and Valentin Hasse-Clot. The two drivers initially appeared on the reserve list for the main event alongside Maxime Robin, but that entry has since been pulled.

***IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge front-runner Jagger Jones, the grandson of the late Parnelli Jones, is a guest of Duqueine this weekend.

***MotorTrend will again carry comprehensive coverage of the 24 Hours of Le Mans for U.S. viewers, with the full race set to on the cable network beginning Saturday at 9 a.m. EDT. All sessions will also be streamed on the Max app with BR Sports add-on.

***Canadian viewers can watch coverage on Discovery Velocity as well as the WEC’s official app. Eurosport, meanwhile, carries the majority of the coverage within Europe and the UK. Click Here for the full TV distribution package.

***Radio Le Mans, meanwhile, offers free coverage of all the action trackside on 91.2 FM and online at radiolemans.com with its English-language team led by John Hindhaugh, Jonny Palmer, Bruce Jones and Paul Truswell, among others.

***Thursday track action begins with Free Practice 3, which runs from 3 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EDT) to 6 p.m. (12 p.m EDT). Hyperpole follows at 8 p.m. (2 p.m. EDT), with Free Practice 4 running for a further hour starting at 10 p.m. (4 p.m. EDT).

John Dagys and Davey Euwema contributed to this report