Le Mans Sunday Notebook

Photo: Charly López/DPPI

***Heart of Racing Team’s Aston Martin Valkyrie led the way in Sunday’s Le Mans test day, thanks to a 3:26.293 lap time by Tom Gamble in the No. 007 entry, marking the first time the LMH-based prototype has topped a session at Circuit de la Sarthe.

***Gamble described the difference between how the Valkyrie felt on Sunday compared to its Le Mans debut last year as “night and day” noting the car’s systems and the overall balance of the car had both improved.

***However, Gamble downplayed the significance of topping the timesheets. “You don’t know what other people are doing,” he said. “We’re doing our thing. It’s a nice confidence boost, but it’s meaningless really – like qualifying on pole for this race, it’s nice, but the main thing is to be at the sharp end come Sunday afternoon. We’ll see, but it’s a nice morale boost for the team.”

***The No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid rebounded from an accident in the first session between Ryo Hirakawa and Le Mans rookie Jake Hughes in the No. 25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca 07 Gibson, to end up second quickest on the day, thanks to Brendon Hartley’s 3:26.401 lap. Co-driver Sebastien Buemi’s 3:26.827 time would have also put the car runner-up on the day’s time charts.

***Hirakawa insisted he “couldn’t do anything” to avoid the spun Hughes, on the Briton’s out lap, when the two cars made contact in Turn 3 late in the session. “It was unfortunate, but hopefully it means we got our bad luck out of the way before the race.” The Japanese driver, however, shared optimism, on the progress made with the upgraded LMH-based prototype. “It’s looking good; a big step compared to last year,” he said. “We didn’t lose any time in the afternoon, so hats off to the mechanics.”

***Hughes, meanwhile, managed to get his required ten laps in during the second session, logging 16 laps in all.

***Toyota’s No. 8 car race engineer, Ryan Dingle, said they went through about “90 percent” of the test items they wanted to do, despite the incident. “We could evaluate what has changed on the circuit and, of course, the new tire,” he said. “We have more compounds to choose from here compared to other WEC races, which brings new opportunities, and new challenges.”

***The reference to the circuit having changed refers to resurfacing works between the first chicane on the Mulsanne Straight (officially the Daytona chicane) and the end of the Mulsanne Straight since last year’s Le Mans.

***Hartley, meanwhile, drew level with the pair of Alpine A424s driven by Ferdinand Habsburg and Victor Martins in having the fastest trap speeds, all at 345.1 km/h (214.4 mph).

***Alpine newcomer Martins, who set the fifth fastest time of the day, described his first experience of Circuit de la Sarthe as “incredible.” The French driver added: “Going at 340 km/h along the Hunaudieres (Mulsanne Straight), it’s crazy. Really enjoyable, and I think we worked really well on the aspects of the car we needed to and we understood a few important things. I feel ready for my first Le Mans.”

***Toyota reserve driver Esteban Masson completed four laps in the No. 7 Toyota, setting the second-slowed time in Hypercar, a 3:34.263, compared to Genesis Magma Racing’s reserve Jamie Chadwick, who had a 3:35.909 lap time in the No. 17 Genesis GMR-001 after logging five laps.

***Wayne Taylor, whose U.S.-based team topped the time charts in the opening session with Filipe Albuquerque and ended the day sixth in the No. 101 Cadillac V-Series.R, characterized it as a “really good day” particularly given the positive feedback from their drivers, who are working hand-in-hand with the six Hertz Team JOTA pilots and British squad.

***Taylor said: “I don’t I’m not sure if anybody was going to try and set any times out there today. I know we made some changes to the car in that last session, and we think it’s an improvement. Honestly, everybody from GM and Cadillac Racing have supported this three-car team really, really well. 
And I’m pretty excited for the week.”

***Mathys Jaubert admitted he found Le Mans more challenging to get to grips with in a Hypercar for the first time than other tracks he has visited earlier this season, after contesting the LMP2 division on his Le Mans debut last year. “It’s a track which is completely different to all the other ones, he said. “The other ones I integrate quite quickly but here I feel like I have to push a lot more to be on the pace. Obviously I am, but it feels like to be quick you have to push 110 percent every time.”

***Genesis enjoyed a productive day as the GMR-001 experienced Le Mans for the first time, with Paul-Loup Chatin finishing tenth on the combined leaderboard. “We tried different tires, different philosophies, different maps and now we have to analyze everything and try to get the best philosophy as possible,” said Jaubert as the manufacturer focused on race pace.

***Setting the most laps among the 18 Hypercar runners was the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8, which ran 86 laps across the day, including a session-high 49 laps in the afternoon, while second-most productive was the No. 009 Aston Martin on 83 laps. At the bottom of the lap count was the No. 51 Ferrari 499P on 58 laps.

***Of note, the No. 15 BMW of Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello and Kevin Magnussen sampled all three new compounds of the new Michelin Pilot Sport Endurance line of tires.

***WRT’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP driver Philipp Eng turned five laps apiece in both BMWs, to ensure he’s qualified in the event of the team needing him to sub for one of its six drivers. Marco Wittmann, who was also listed in both cars for the test day, however, did not turn any laps.

***Leading the way in LMP2 lap count were the No. 343 Inter Europol Competition Oreca and the No. 37 CLX Motorsport Oreca on 78 laps apiece, while in LMGT3 leading the mileage charts was the No. 10 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo with 76 laps.

***The No. 20 BMW of Robin Frijns made a late-session improvement to seventh, although BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos confirmed that neither car attempted qualifying simulations runs. “We concentrated more to get a proper read on the tires, to get mileage on the cars and tires and this was our main focus,” he told reporters.

***Roos downplayed the possibility of the Hard compound being used in the race, given the current weather forecasts for next weekend. “If it’s not getting hotter than this, then it’s most likely difficult to get the Hard tire into the right window,” he said. “This we expect, but we tried all three tires. We also tried to maximize the stint lengths with the tires to see how many stints we can get out of the tires and get a proper idea about the tire behavior.”

***The question remains if Hypercar teams will be permitted to quadruple stint tires in the race, something that Michelin has to sign off on after ensuring all cars would have the equal ability to do so. “You have to talk to Michelin,” said Roos. “First they have to allow us. That’s the normal thing you do at the pre-test, you check the tires. Now Michelin is checking the tires and then deciding on what will be done.”

***Roos downplayed the fact that only nine-tenths of a second separated the the quickest Hypercar from each of the eight manufacturers. “I would not read anything into it, to be honest, because everybody concentrated on [different things],” he said. “We also didn’t look at what the top runners were doing. We just concentrated on our work and our test points on what we wanted to do.”

***Peugeot driver Paul di Resta reckons the cooler conditions currently being experienced could result in the Soft compound playing a greater role in the race. Like BMW, the French manufacturer used all three compounds across its pair of Peugeot 9X8s during the test day and di Resta said there is now a reduced difference between the tires.

***He said: “If you look at how cold it was last night, I guess the Soft would be a tire but it also depends on what condition the track’s in. If the track’s in reasonable shape rubber-wise, depending on the weather being stable all week, that will naturally push you into harder compounds. The other thing is whether it’s a chaotic race in the night. If it’s a chaotic race in the night, the warmup will help on the Soft but that depends on your durability as well. It’s not easy to do with 14 sets of tires given you get punctures and all the rest.”

***Di Resta also said Peugeot focused on giving Hypercar rookie Nick Cassidy plenty of running in the No. 93 machine (the New Zealander completed 33 laps to di Resta’s 22) they also share with Stoffel Vandoorne, who finished the day 11th on the combined timesheets. “We prioritized Nick as well because he’s only done the GT here, so we gave him a lot of running today,” said di Resta.

***WRT team principal Vincent Vosse specifically called out the pace of the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs, which ended the day third, fourth, seventh and 23rd quickest in LMGT3, although had the four quickest top speeds in the opening session, led by 13 Autosport’s Lars Kearn at 296.2 km/h (181.1 mph). By comparison, the quickest BMW M4 GT3 EVO was fifth fastest in the speed traps in the hands of Darren Leung, also from the first session.

***Vosse said: “I would say the Corvette looks super, super strong. But we are not really looking at that at the moment. We’re looking what we can do, what would be our stint, and that’s the only concern we have.”

***Corvette Racing program manager Andrea Hidalgo added: “We’re happy with the performance of the Corvettes as a whole and the level of preparation from our teams on the Test Day. This is not an easy event to execute for the most experienced group, so today was a nice result.”

***Ben Keating turned 33 laps in the No. 33 TF Sport Corvette, in his first time back behind the wheel since recovering from his elbow fracture. “I got into the car four different times, and I’ve made big improvements every single time, which is all I can hope for,” he said. “In that last run my lap time was pretty similar to where I qualified last year, and that makes me feel really good.”

***Keating added: “The Corvette looks strong on top speed but not necessarily on acceleration, which is kind of an interesting deal. I see a lot of people out there avoiding a tow and things like that. There are still some games being played out there.”

***Schnitzer Motorsport co-founder Herbert Schnitzer passed away on Friday at the age of 85. The German squad, which ceased operations in 2021, had been one of BMW’s most successful teams in GT and touring car competition, with Schnitzer having also been the mastermind behind BMW’s most recent overall win at Le Mans, when Joachim Winkelhock, Pierluigi Martini, and Yannick Dalmas took victory in a BMW V12 LMR in 1999.

***A statement from BMW M Motorsport read: “The BMW M Motorsport family mourns the passing of Herbert Schnitzer. He and his brothers built a dynasty in motorsport. For decades, Team Schnitzer celebrated countless victories all over the world with BMW race cars and created unforgettable memories.”

***With the test day in the books, track action will go quiet, and the public roads return to passenger vehicles for the next two days, before being shut down again for official track action kicking off on Wednesday, with the first WEC session being Free Practice at 2 p.m. CEST (8 a.m. EST).

Jamie Klein & Stephen Lickorish contributed to this report

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John