Le Mans 24h: Toyota fastest in first practice ahead of Cadillac

The two Toyota GR010 HYBRIDs locked out the top two positions during Wednesday afternoon's three-hour session, with Brendon Hartley setting the pace aboard the #8 car on a 3m27.742s.

That was almost two seconds up on the best time set in Sunday's official test day.

It was the sister #7 Toyota that led the way for most of the session, as Jose Maria Lopez punched in a 3m28.290s early on, going a tenth faster than Loic Duval in the leading Peugeot 9X8.

That was then bettered by Kamui Kobayashi, who lowered the bar to a 3m27.875s when the session was resumed following a red flag prompted by a crash at Tertre Rouge involving the #777 D'station Racing Aston Martin Vantage and the #13 TDS Racing-run Tower Motorsports LMP2.

Casper Stevenson had already suffered an off in the D'station car and was stranded in the middle of the circuit when Steven Thomas slammed into the side of the stricken Aston, leaving both cars badly damaged. The session was resumed after a 35-minute delay.

Hartley made his improvement with 23 minutes left on the clock to make it a Toyota 1-2, 0.133s ahead of Kobayashi, before the session was stopped for a second time with four minutes to go.

That was caused by another crash at Tertre Rouge, this time for the solo Corvette C8.R of Nico Varrone.

Jumping to third late on prior to the stoppage was the best of the Cadillac V-Series.R LMDhs, the #2 Chip Ganassi Racing-run car of Earl Bamber, who managed to get within two tenths of Hartley's benchmark with a 3m27.939s.

Next up were two Porsche 963s, with the #75 car of Felipe Nasr setting the fourth-fastest time ahead of Kevin Estre in the #6 car, both drivers coming within half a second of the pace. 

Peugeot's pair of 9X8 LMHs were sixth and seventh, Duval in the #94 car leading the #93 machine in which Mikkel Jensen set the best time prior to suffering a stoppage in the pitlane.

Ferrari, which had topped the test day with its new 499P LMH endured a low-key first practice session with Antonio Fuoco going eighth fastest in the #50 car, four places up on the sister #51 machine of Alessandro Pier Guidi.

Completing the top 10 were the #3 Cadillac of Sebastien Bourdais and the remaining works Porsche, the #5 car of Frederic Makowiecki.

In LMP2, an early lap of 3m34.579s from Pietro Fittipaldi in the #28 JOTA ORECA was enough to top the session by just three hundredths ahead of the #37 Cool Racing entry piloted by Malthe Jakobsen.

Prema's #9 car recovered from an early incident in which it sustained rear wing damage to set the third-fastest time in the hands of Mirko Bortolotti.

Leading the way in GTE AM was the #55 GMB Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GTE of factory driver Marco Sorensen with a best time of 3m55.020s.

Riccardo Pera was second-fastest in the #86 GR Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19, three tenths behind, followed by Valentin Hasse-Clot in another Aston, the #72 TF Sport entry.

The Garage 56-entered Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 NASCAR Cup car was comfortably faster than the entire GTE Am field with a best time of 3m49.475 set by ex-Formula 1 champion Jenson Button.

Early in the session, Robin Frijns survived an off at Tertre Rouge aboard the #31 WRT Oreca, albeit making contact with the guard rail.

Other LMP2 runners to hit trouble included the #35 Alpine LMP2 car, as Oli Caldwell crashed at the first part of the Ford chicane, and the #34 Inter Europol Competition machine, which broke down at the pitlane exit.

Also in the wars was the #66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari 488 GTE in which Louis Prette suffered a head-on collision with the barriers at the Ford chicane, with that car not reappearing for the rest of the session.

First qualifying for the Le Mans 24 Hours begins at 1900 local time, while second practice follows at 2200.

Le Mans 24 Hours - First practice results:

Pos.	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	8	Sebastien Buemi  Brendon Hartley  Ryo Hirakawa	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	Hypercar	3'27.742
2	7	Mike Conway  Kamui Kobayashi  Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	Hypercar	3'27.875	0.133
3	2	Earl Bamber  Alex Lynn  Richard Westbrook	Cadillac V-Series.R	Hypercar	3'27.939	0.197
4	75	Mathieu Jaminet  Luiz Felipe Nasr  Nick Tandy	Porsche 963	Hypercar	3'28.150	0.408
5	6	Kevin Estre  Andre Lotterer  Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 963	Hypercar	3'28.167	0.425
6	94	Loïc Duval  Gustavo Menezes  Nico Müller	Peugeot 9X8	Hypercar	3'28.386	0.644
7	93	Paul di Resta  Mikkel Jensen  Jean-Eric Vergne	Peugeot 9X8	Hypercar	3'28.533	0.791
8	50	Antonio Fuoco  Miguel Molina  Nicklas Nielsen	Ferrari 499P	Hypercar	3'28.708	0.966
9	3	Sebastien Bourdais  Scott Dixon  Renger van der Zande	Cadillac V-Series.R	Hypercar	3'28.799	1.057
10	5	Dane Cameron  Michael Christensen  Frédéric Makowiecki	Porsche 963	Hypercar	3'29.375	1.633
11	709	Nathanaël Berthon  Esteban Gutierrez  Franck Mailleux	Glickenhaus 007 LMH	Hypercar	3'29.617	1.875
12	51	James Calado  Antonio Giovinazzi  Alessandro Pier Guidi	Ferrari 499P	Hypercar	3'29.845	2.103
13	708	Ryan Briscoe  Romain Dumas  Olivier Pla	Glickenhaus 007 LMH	Hypercar	3'29.991	2.249
14	38	Antonio Felix da Costa  Will Stevens  Ye Yifei	Porsche 963	Hypercar	3'30.084	2.342
15	311	Jack Aitken  Pipo Derani  Alexander Sims	Cadillac V-Series.R	Hypercar	3'30.300	2.558
16	28	Pietro Fittipaldi  David Heinemeier Hansson  Oliver Rasmussen	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'34.579	6.837
17	37	Alexandre Coigny  Malthe Jakobsen  Nicolas Lapierre	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'34.611	6.869
18	4	Tom Dillmann  Esteban Guerrieri  Tristan Vautier	Vanwall Vandervell 680	Hypercar	3'34.923	7.181
19	63	Mirko Bortolotti  Daniil Kvyat  Doriane Pin	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.451	8.709
20	36	Julien Canal  Charles Milesi  Matthieu Vaxivière	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.471	8.729
21	34	Albert Costa  Fabio Scherer  Jakub Smiechowski	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.796	9.054
22	31	Robin Frijns  Sean Gelael  Ferdinand Habsburg	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.870	9.128
23	14	Mathias Beche  Ben Hanley  Rodrigo Sales	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.941	9.199
24	923	Tom Gamble  Dries Vanthoor  Salih Yoluc	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.993	9.251
25	10	Gabriel Aubry  Ryan Cullen  Matthias Kaiser	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'37.223	9.481
26	30	Rene Binder  Neel Jani  Nicolas Pino	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'37.305	9.563
27	43	Maxime Martin  Tom van Rompuy  Ugo De Wilde	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'37.656	9.914
28	65	Tijmen van der Helm  Manuel Maldonado  Job Van Uitert	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'38.047	10.305
29	47	Reshad de Gerus  Vlad Lomko  Simon Pagenaud	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'38.141	10.399
30	32	Anders Fjordbach  Mark Kvamme  Jan Magnussen	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'38.229	10.487
31	41	Rui Andrade  Louis Deletraz  Robert Kubica	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'38.234	10.492
32	39	Giedo van der Garde  Roberto Lacorte  Patrick Pilet	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'38.463	10.721
33	48	Paul Loup Chatin  Laurents Hörr  Paul Lafargue	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'38.767	11.025
34	80	Ben Barnicoat  Norman Nato  François Perrodo	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'38.878	11.136
35	13	René Rast  Ricky Taylor  Steven Thomas	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'38.898	11.156
36	9	Juan Manuel Correa  Filip Ugran  Bent Viscaal	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'39.266	11.524
37	23	Tom Blomqvist  Oliver Jarvis  Josh Pierson	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'39.299	11.557
38	35	Olli Caldwell  André Negrão  Memo Rojas	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'40.411	12.669
39	45	James Allen  Colin Braun  George Kurtz	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'40.817	13.075
40	22	Filipe Albuquerque  Philip Hanson  Frederick Lubin	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'41.249	13.507
41	24	Jenson Button  Jimmie Johnson  Mike Rockenfeller	Chevrolet Camaro ZL1	INNOVATIVE CAR	3'49.475	21.733
42	55	Gustav Birch  Jens Reno Møller  Marco Sørensen	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'55.020	27.278
43	86	Ben Barker  Riccardo Pera  Michael Wainwright	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'55.330	27.588
44	72	Valentin Hasse-Clot  Arnold Robin  Maxime Robin	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'55.506	27.764
45	16	Ryan Hardwick  Jan Heylen  Zacharie Robichon	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'55.573	27.831
46	60	Matteo Cressoni  Alessio Picariello  Claudio Schiavoni	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'55.624	27.882
47	98	Ian James  Daniel Mancinelli  Alex Riberas	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'55.632	27.890
48	83	Luis Perez Companc  Alessio Rovera  Lilou Wadoux	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'55.806	28.064
49	85	Sarah Bovy  Rahel Frey  Michelle Gatting	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'55.883	28.141
50	88	Jonas Ried  Harry Tincknell  Don Yount	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'55.972	28.230
51	25	Ahmad Al Harthy  Michael Dinan  Charlie Eastwood	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'56.038	28.296
52	56	Matteo Cairoli  PJ Hyett  Gunnar Jeannette	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'56.073	28.331
53	66	Neubauer Thomas  Giacomo Petrobelli  Louis Prette	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'56.085	28.343
54	911	Michael Fassbender  Richard Lietz  Martin Rump	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'56.159	28.417
55	74	Kei Cozzolino  Yorikatsu Tsujiko  Naoki Yokomizo	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'56.211	28.469
56	21	Simon Mann  Ulysse De Pauw  Julien Piguet	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'56.283	28.541
57	77	Julien Andlauer  Christian Ried  Mikkel Pedersen	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'56.457	28.715
58	57	Scott Huffaker  Takeshi Kimura  Daniel Serra	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'56.477	28.735
59	54	Francesco Castellacci  Thomas Flohr  Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'56.548	28.806
60	33	Nicky Catsburg  Ben Keating  Nicolas Varrone	Chevrolet Corvette C8.R	LMGTE AM	3'56.552	28.810
61	777	Tomonobu Fujii  Satoshi Hoshino  Casper Stevenson	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'56.961	29.219
62	100	Andrew Haryanto  Chandler Hull  Jeffrey Segal	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	4'00.446	32.704