WTR Cadillac Sets Pace as Le Mans Test Day Begins

Cadillac set the pace as track action began ahead of this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans with Filipe Albuquerque topping the first test day session that featured a clash between the Toyota of Ryo Hirakawa and Jake Hughes in the No. 25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca 07 Gibson.

The red flags appeared with 27 minutes of the three-hour session remaining after the incident at the Goodyear Chicane caused the No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid significant damage to its left rear having tangled with Hughes, the Briton having been on an outlap and joining the circuit for the very first time in his career.

The session was restarted with 14 minutes to go and in those closing moments Albuquerque clocked a 3:27.011 to go fastest in the No. 101 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R by around three tenths of a second from Charles Milesi in the No. 35 Alpine A424.

Albuquerque’s lap was just one thousandth of a second slower than Robert Kubica managed in the AF Corse Ferrari 499P in the equivalent session last year.

It was a strong morning for Cadillac as Will Stevens was third fastest in the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA entry with a 3:27.843 that was on course to top the timesheets prior to a flurry of late improvements after the red flag.

Cadillac’s strong form followed it taking pole for last year’s race courtesy of Alex Lynn, who is absent from this year’s edition.

Roman De Angelis posted a 3:28.086 in the No. 009 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie to finish fourth fastest, ahead of the best of the Ferraris.

Nicklas Nielsen was another late improver to post a 3:28.291 in the No. 50 Ferrari 499P, while the pair of Toyotas were next quickest.

Sixth was the No. 8 entry thanks to a 3:28.319 from Sebastien Buemi set before its clash with the LMP2 machine, while Kamui Kobayashi was a tenth slower in the sister No. 7 car.

Eighth fastest was the pick of the BMW M Hybrid V8s, the No. 15 machine of Raffaele Marciello that posted a 3:28.623 to edge out the the second WRT-run BMW of Robin Frijns by three tenths.

The second of the Aston Martins rounded out the top-ten with a 3:28.730 from Ross Gunn at the wheel of the No. 007 Valkyrie.

Le Mans debutant Genesis was an impressive 11th with Pipo Derani posting a 3:29.155 to be 1.8 seconds adrift of Albuquerque’s outright pace in the best of the GMR-001s.

It was a low-key session for Peugeot, meanwhile, as the pair of 9X8s were 15th and 16th on the leaderboard, well over two seconds off top spot.

The Hirakawa/Hughes clash was the only notable interruption to the session aside from a planned 38-minute pause as the safety car procedure was tested.

AF Corse Tops LMP2, LMGT3

While the AF Corse Ferraris missed out on top spot in the Hypercar ranks, the squad topped the other two divisions with its No. 183 Oreca 07 Gibson of Matthieu Vaxiviere setting the LMP2 pace with a 3:35.526.

Vaxiviere was four tenths faster than Tom Dillmann at the wheel of last year’s class-winning No. 43 Inter Europol Competition entry, and the AF Corse driver was also two tenths quicker than the best LMP2 lap in last year’s test day.

Meanwhile, the intra-Porsche GTP driver rivalry was headed by Laurin Heinrich, who was third quickest with a 3:36.283 aboard the No. 4 CrowdStrike by Algarve Pro Racing machine.

Heinrich was nearly half a second faster than his Porsche stablemate Kevin Estre aboard the No. 14 TDS entry, while Esteban Masson was fifth for Forestier Racing and Julien Andlauer completed the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP Porsche trio in sixth on a 3:37.440 for Duqueine Team.

Meanwhile, it was AF Corse’s No. 21 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo that set the pace in LMGT3, thanks to a 3:57.366 from Alessio Rovera.

He was less than a tenth quicker than Valentin Hasse-Clot’s No. 59 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, while Jose Maria Lopez was third fastest with a late improvement in the No. 87 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 to post a 3:57.421.

Fourth on the leaderboard was Timur Boguslavskiy aboard the No. 91 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo with a 3:57.614, while completing the top-five was Marvin Kirchhoefer at the wheel of the No. 10 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo that won the previous race at Spa.

A further three-hour session is due to take place this afternoon, getting under way at 3:30 p.m. local time (9:30 a.m. EST).

RESULTS: Test session 1