Le Mans 24h: Toyota leads red-flagged first practice

Kazuki Nakajima ended up fastest over the course of the three-hour session, posting a 3m21.656s aboard the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid in the closing stages. 

That eclipsed teammate Brendon Hartley's 3m21.951s, while  the #7 car also improved in the final minutes with a 3m21.990s from Kamui Kobayashi.

The #7 Toyota didn't record a representative time for the first hour of the session because it only completed installation laps as part of the aerodynamic calibration process for the latest Le Mans body package on the car.

The best of the Rebellion Racing privateer LMP1 entries was just over a second down on the second of the Toyotas.

Gustavo Menezes posted a 3m23.155s in the #1 Rebellion R-13, which compared with the 3m25.216s from Louis Deletraz in the team's second entry. 

The ByKolles ENSO CLM P1/01 brought up the rear of the five-car P1 field on a 3m28.442s from Oliver Webb.

The times were slower than in first free practice for Le Mans last year. Kobayashi was fastest in the opening four-hour afternoon session on a 3m18.091s in 2019.

High Class Racing led the way in the LMP2 class courtesy of a 3m29.873s from Le Mans debutant Kenta Yamashita aboard its Oreca 07.

The Toyota-backed reigning SUPER GT champion eclipsed a 3m29.918s from Giedo van der Garde in the TDS Racing-run Racing Team Nederland Oreca with 20 minutes remaining to make it two Michelin-tyred cars at the top of the order.

Third place went to the Goodyear-shod JOTA Sport Oreca in which Antonio Felix da Costa set a 3m31.206s early in the session.

The Duqueine Engineering team end up fourth with a 3m31.309s, while the JOTA-run Jackie Chan DC Racing entry was fifth on 3m31.348s.

The two factory Aston Martins were on top in GTE Pro for the majority of the session.

Alex Lynn ended up fastest on a 3m53.930s, which was more than a second up on the 3m54.992s recorded by Nicki Thiim in the sister Vantage GTE. 

James Calado was close behind on a 3m55.186s in his factory AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.

That was eight tenths quicker than the 3m55.999s from the second of the works Ferraris shared by Davide Rigon, Miguel Molina and Sam Bird.

The two privateer GTE Pro Ferraris run by Risi Competizione and Scuderia Corsa took fifth and sixth positions, while the two factory Porsche 911 RSR-19s brought up the rear of the eight-car GTE Pro field.

GTE Am was led by the works-run Aston Martin Vantage GTE on a 3m55.484s from Ross Gunn. That put the car eight tenths up on the HubAuto Ferrari in second place.

The session was briefly red flagged during its middle hour when the #89 GTE Am Project 1 Porsche had to be recovered from Indianapolis.

Practice resumes 2:00pm local time before the first qualifying session at 5:15pm. The fastest six cars in each class (or all the P1s) will go through to 30-minute Hyperpole session.

First practice results:

Pos.	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap	Interval
1	8	Sebastien Buemi  Kazuki Nakajima  Brendon Hartley	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	3'21.656
2	7	Mike Conway  Kamui Kobayashi  Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	3'21.990	0.334	0.334
3	1	Bruno Senna  Norman Nato  Gustavo Menezes	Rebellion R13	LMP1	3'23.155	1.499	1.165
4	3	Romain Dumas  Nathanaël Berthon  Louis Deletraz	Rebellion R13	LMP1	3'25.216	3.560	2.061
5	4	Tom Dillmann  Bruno Spengler  Oliver Webb	ENSO CLM P1/01	LMP1	3'28.442	6.786	3.226
6	33	Kenta Yamashita  Mark Patterson  Anders Fjordbach	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'29.873	8.217	1.431
7	29	Frits van Eerd  Giedo van der Garde  Nyck de Vries	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'29.918	8.262	0.045
8	38	Anthony Davidson  Antonio Felix da Costa  Roberto Gonzalez	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'31.206	9.550	1.288
9	30	Jonathan Hirschi  Konstantin Tereshchenko  Tristan Gommendy	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'31.309	9.653	0.103
10	37	Ho-Pin Tung  Gabriel Aubry  Will Stevens	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'31.348	9.692	0.039
11	26	Roman Rusinov  Jean-Eric Vergne  Mikkel Jensen	Aurus 01	LMP2	3'31.448	9.792	0.100
12	28	Paul Lafargue  Paul Loup Chatin  Richard Bradley	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'31.751	10.095	0.303
13	22	Philip Hanson  Filipe Albuquerque  Paul di Resta	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'31.944	10.288	0.193
14	27	Henrik Hedman  Ben Hanley  Renger van der Zande	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'32.010	10.354	0.066
15	16	Ryan Cullen  Oliver Jarvis  Nick Tandy	Aurus 01	LMP2	3'32.096	10.440	0.086
16	32	William Owen  Alex Brundle  Job van Uitert	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'32.154	10.498	0.058
17	42	Nicolas Lapierre  Antonin Borga  Alexandre Coigny	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'32.188	10.532	0.034
18	21	Juan Pablo Montoya  Timothe Buret  Memo Rojas	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'32.524	10.868	0.336
19	31	Nico Jamin  Julien Canal  Matthieu Vaxivière	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'33.166	11.510	0.642
20	36	André Negrão  Pierre Ragues  Thomas Laurent	Alpine A470	LMP2	3'33.312	11.656	0.146
21	39	James Allen  Vincent Capillaire  Charles Milesi	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'33.818	12.162	0.506
22	50	Tatiana Calderón  Sophia Floersch  Beitske Visser	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.507	13.851	1.689
23	25	John Falb  Simon Trummer  Matthew McMurry	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.685	14.029	0.178
24	35	Nobuya Yamanaka  Nick Foster  Roberto Merhi	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	3'36.012	14.356	0.327
25	24	Garret Grist  Alex Kapadia  Anthony Wells	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.698	15.042	0.686
26	34	Jakub Smiechowski  Rene Binder  Matevos Isaakyan	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	3'36.818	15.162	0.120
27	47	Roberto Lacorte  Andrea Belicchi  Giorgio Sernagiotto	Dallara P217	LMP2	3'36.948	15.292	0.130
28	11	Adrien Tambay  Erik Maris  Christophe d'Ansembourg	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	3'37.149	15.493	0.201
29	17	Dwight Merriman  Kyle Tilley  John Kennard	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'38.589	16.933	1.440
30	97	Maxime Martin  Alex Lynn  Harry Tincknell	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	3'53.930	32.274	15.341
31	95	Nicki Thiim  Marco Sorensen  Richard Westbrook	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	3'54.992	33.336	1.062
32	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi  James Calado  Daniel Serra	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	3'55.186	33.530	0.194
33	98	Paul Dalla Lana  Ross Gunn  Augusto Farfus	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'55.484	33.828	0.298
34	71	Davide Rigon  Miguel Molina  Sam Bird	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	3'55.999	34.343	0.515
35	82	Olivier Pla  Sebastien Bourdais  Jules Gounon	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	3'56.273	34.617	0.274
36	72	Morris Chen  Tom Blomqvist  Marcos Gomes	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'56.350	34.694	0.077
37	63	Cooper MacNeil  Toni Vilander  Jeffrey Segal	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	3'56.425	34.769	0.075
38	70	Takeshi Kimura  Vincent Abril  Kei Cozzolino	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'56.609	34.953	0.184
39	92	Michael Christensen  Kevin Estre  Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	3'56.705	35.049	0.096
40	90	Salih Yoluc  Charlie Eastwood  Jonathan Adam	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'56.988	35.332	0.283
41	61	Francesco Piovanetti  Oswaldo Negri Jr  Côme Ledogar	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'57.048	35.392	0.060
42	77	Christian Ried  Riccardo Pera  Matt Campbell	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'57.237	35.581	0.189
43	86	Michael Wainwright  Ben Barker  Andrew Watson	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'57.344	35.688	0.107
44	91	Gianmaria Bruni  Richard Lietz  Frédéric Makowiecki	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	3'57.412	35.756	0.068
45	57	Ben Keating  Felipe Fraga  Jeroen Bleekemolen	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'57.628	35.972	0.216
46	54	Thomas Flohr  Francesco Castellacci  Giancarlo Fisichella	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'57.847	36.191	0.219
47	56	Egidio Perfetti  Larry ten Voorde  Matteo Cairoli	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'58.150	36.494	0.303
48	88	Thomas Preining  Dominique Bastien  Adrien de Leener	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'58.441	36.785	0.291
49	60	Claudio Schiavoni  Sergio Pianezzola  Paolo Ruberti	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'58.569	36.913	0.128
50	85	Manuela Gostner  Rahel Frey  Michelle Gatting	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'58.793	37.137	0.224
51	83	François Perrodo  Emmanuel Collard  Nicklas Nielsen	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'58.850	37.194	0.057
52	55	Duncan Cameron  Aaron Scott  Matt Griffin	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'59.196	37.540	0.346
53	75	Rino Mastronardi  Matteo Cressoni  Andrea Piccini	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'59.363	37.707	0.167
54	99	Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak  Lucas Légeret  Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'59.369	37.713	0.006
55	66	Richard Heistand  Max Root  Jan Magnussen	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'59.487	37.831	0.118
56	78	Horst Felbermayr Jr.  Michele Beretta  Max van Splunteren	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	4'01.031	39.375	1.544
57	62	Bonamy Grimes  Johnny Mowlem  Charles Hollings	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	4'01.063	39.407	0.032
58	89	Philippe Haezebrouck  Julien Piguet  Andreas Laskaratos	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	4'04.458	42.802	3.395
59	52	Christoph Ulrich  Steffen Gorig  Alexander West	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	4'06.371	44.715	1.913