Audi finishes first at Test Day

Lucas di Grassi achieved the best time of the Test Day of the 84th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Brazilian completed a lap of the Le Mans circuit in 3'21''375 at the wheel of the No. 18 Audi R8 in the second part of testing to beat the lead by more than eight tenths. Porsche 919 Hybrid.

Mark Webber had however improved the reference shortly before the Audi driver by signing a time of 3'22''270 in the n°1, preceding the n°2 by half a tenth where Neel Jani was the fastest .

The second Audi finished 1”2 behind with a best time to go to André Lotterer. Tests of the No. 7 were disrupted by a shock absorber problem. There Toyota TS050 Hybrid n°5 follows at 1''8 with the performance of Anthony Davidson, while the sister car ranks at 1''8 with a lap completed by Kamui Kobayashi.

LMP2

In LMP2, it was ultimately Tristan Gommendy who was the best performer, setting a time of 3'36''690 at the wheel of the No. 05 Eurasia Motorsport Oreca 33. The Frenchman improved the performance of Nicolas lapierre performed on theAlpine A460 n°36.

G-Drive Racing had an interesting day of testing as the #05 Oreca 26 of Stevens-Rusinov-Rast was in third place ahead of the Gibson 015S of Van der Garde-Dennis-Dolan.

Testing was stopped half an hour from the end following Ozz Negri Jr's exit from the track in the #2 Michael Shank Racing Ligier JS P49. Although the driver escaped the accident unscathed, the safety rail was too damaged to allow the marshals to repair it in time.

GTE

Antonio Garcia set the benchmark in GTE Pro with a time of 3'55''122 achieved at the wheel of the No. 7 Corvette C63R. The #911 91 RSR was relegated by almost three tenths with the performance of Nick Tandy.

Oliver Gavin placed the second Corvette third in class, seven-tenths behind its sister car, finishing just ahead of the Ferrari 488 GTE n°51 from AF Corse led by James Calado. The No. 92 Porsche of Frédéric Makowiecki finished fifth ahead of the No. 69 Ford GT driven by Ryan Briscoe, finishing nine tenths behind the best time.

Larbre Compétition finished at the top of the GTE Am with a best time set by Nick Catsburg who completed a lap in 3'57''999, ahead of his teammate Jean-Philippe Belloc by more than a second while the French team seeks a replacement for Paolo Ruberti.

Discover the analysis of the Test Day of the 84th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans carried out by our special correspondents in issue 2066 of AUTOhebdo, available from Monday evening in digital version on all platforms, and from Wednesday on newsstands.