Le Mans – Toyota keeps control in testing

Free practice sessions for the 82th edition of 24 Hours of Le Mans were marked byThe terrible accident suffered by Loïc Duval on Audi n°1 which caused an interruption of almost an hour, while the marshals repaired the damaged rail and cleaned the track of the numerous debris which littered the ground. Despite everything, it's good Toyota which is in the lead with the No. 8 Toyota credited with a time of 3'23"652 achieved by Anthony Davidson. Marcel Fässler managed to place the No. 18 R2 between the two TS040s by failing three tenths of the reference time, while the No. 7 Toyota follows at six tenths with a performance achieved by Kazuki Nakajima. On the other hand, Porsche is behind since the two 919 Hybrids are three seconds behind the reference time. The first Rebellion R-One follows seven seconds behind with the No. 12 of Mathias Beche.

Oak Racing leads the LMP2 with the #35 Ligier of Jann Mardenborough who completed a lap of the track in 3'40"611. But the Oreca 03Rs are in ambush since the closest, the #48 of Karun Chandhok's Murphy Prototypes, follows only a tenth behind. The No. 37 of Nicolas Minassian of SMP Racing completes the top three in the category, four tenths ahead ofAlpine A450B of Paul-Loup Chatin.

The battle in GTE Pro also looks promising since first place changed hands several times before finally returning to the Ferrari #51 with which Gianmaria Bruni completed a lap in 3'57"028 to beat the #97 Vantage by six hundredths where Darren Turner had set the previous reference time. Jordan Taylor's No. 73 Corvette follows a second behind. Aston Martin leads the GTE Am with the No. 95 of Nicki Thiim credited with a time of 3'57"015. Note that the Nissan Zeod RC of Ordonez-Reip-Motoyama did not finish at all following gearbox problems stopping it on the track.

The first qualifying session of the 82nd edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans will be contested from 22 p.m. and will be followed live on AUTOhebdo.fr.