Buemi Leads Le Mans Warmup

Sebastien Buemi led the way in Saturday morning’s warmup for the 82nd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

The No. 8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid, that Buemi shares with Anthony Davidson and Nicolas Lapierre, was fastest this morning with a lap time of 3:23.73, edging out the No. 2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler and Benoit Treluyer by just a hundredth of a second.

Alexander Wurz put the No. 7 Toyota in third, followed by the remaining two Audis.

The two Porsche 919 Hybrids finished the session in sixth and seventh overall.

In LMP2 it was the Thiriet by TDS Racing Ligier JS P2 that was fastest, ahead of the No. 48 Murphy Prototypes Oreca 03 Nissan. OAK Racing’s No. 35 had been on top for a long time, before being relegated to third in the final minutes.

GTE-Pro was led by the No. 73 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R of Antonio Garcia, Jan Magnussen and Jordan Taylor, while the No. 95 Aston Martin Vantage of Nicki Thiim, Kristian Poulsen and David Heinemeier Hansson was on top in GTE-Am.

Unlike the previous sessions there were no major incidents this session. A number of cars were reported to the stewards for speeding in the pit lane.

SMP Racing’s Mika Salo lost control of the No. 27 SMP Racing Oreca 03 Nissan into Porsche Curves as the checkered flag was out. The Finnish driver hit the barriers sideways, causing damage to the bodywork and giving the team extra work ahead of the start of the race.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans will start at 3:00 p.m. CET, 9:00 a.m. ET.

RESULTS: Warmup