Kobayashi Fastest in Incident-Free Warmup

Photo: MPS Agency

Kamui Kobayashi paced an incident-free 45-minute warmup session ahead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans on Saturday morning, leading a Toyota Gazoo Racing 1-2.

The Japanese driver, who secured pole on Thursday evening, posted a best time of 3:19.647 to go 1.042 seconds ahead of teammate Sebastien Buemi in the No. 8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid. 

Toyota led for most of the session, with Mike Conway initially quickest in the No. 7 car before handing over controls to Kobayashi.

The best-placed non-hybrid car was the No. 3 Rebellion Racing R13 Gibson on a 3:21.868, ahead of the pair of SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1 Gibsons.

G-Drive Racing’s Jean-Eric Vergne topped LMP2 in the TDS Racing-run team’s Aurus 01 Gibson on a 3:28.763, while the pole-sitting TDS-badged entry went second to go 1-2 for the French squad.

Porsche led GTE-Pro with the No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR of defending winners Michael Christensen, Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre, lapping with a 3:50.095.

Ford Chip Ganassi Racing and AF Corse made it three different brands in the top three.

Gulf Racing led a Porsche 1-2 in GTE-Am, meanwhile, going ahead of the Team Project 1 entry.

The session ran clean with no major incidents, although the Full Course Yellow was brought out briefly to clear debris.

The 87th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans gets underway at 3 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EDT).

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.