Relive the 24 Hours of Le Mans Test Day in live text

Relive the 24 Hours of Le Mans Test Day live with our text commentary, which marks the start of the legendary Le Mans week on the track!

After two days of scrutineering and driving in the city center, things get serious on the front of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with the Test Day. Two sessions are planned for this Sunday, the first between 10am and 13pm, the second between 15:30pm and 18:30pm, to familiarize oneself with a circuit which is ultimately only used twice a year in this configuration, during the 24 Hours and during the Le Mans Classic.

24 Hours of Le Mans 2026 – Test Day
The day in live text

18h30 - That concludes this Test Day for the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans, with the surprise fastest time of the day.Aston Martin Valkyrie this Sunday afternoon! See you on Wednesday for the official start of the Le Mans meeting.

18h24 - Yifei Ye moves up to 13th place with the Classic Ferrari for sale 499P nº83 of AF Corse.

18h18 - Stoffel Vandoorne places himself in the top 10 with the Peugeot n ° 93.

18h06 - Several cars are currently setting their best times of the day; can a Hypercar challenge the leading Aston Martin? In LMP2, Mathias Beche puts TDS Racing in the lead, while the Porsche Manthey #91 leads the way in LMGT3.

17h59 - As this Test Day enters its final half hour, Sébastien Buemi placed the Toyota No. 8 is in second place in the standings, five tenths behind the leader, which is still the Aston Martin No. 007!

17h32 - We are entering the final hour of this Test Day, temperatures are starting to drop slightly.

17:15 p.m. – 🟢 The Ferrari is clear, the race has restarted under green flag conditions.

17:09 p.m. – 🟡 SLOW ZONE 🟡 Alessandro Pier Guidi's Ferrari #51 went off the track at the Indianapolis corner! It's hard to say if the Ferrari hit the tire wall, but it will need to be recovered by the marshals.

17h02 - There is now less than an hour and a half left before the end of this Test Day, still led by the Aston Martin No. 007:

16:40 p.m. – 🟢 We restart under green flag conditions across the entire circuit; it seems the slow zone was due to the presence of gravel in the Dunlop curve.

16h35 - Tom Gamble now places the No. 007 Aston Martin at the top of the standings, while a slow zone is about to be triggered in the first sector:

16:28 p.m. – 🟢 As before, we quickly resumed operations under green flag conditions.

16:25 p.m. – 🟡 FULL COURSE YELLOW 🟡 Pilots are instructed to stay on the right side of the track at Tertre Rouge.

16h20 - Norman Nato takes the lead in the field with the No. 12 Cadillac in 3:26.853.

16h13 - Most of the field is currently focused on long stints to better understand tire degradation. Milesi is so far the only driver to have broken the 3-minute, 27-second barrier.

16h05 - Charles Milesi is still leading the way after the first half-hour of testing this afternoon.

15h49 - The standings after the first twenty minutes, with now...Alpine Charles Milesi at the top of the hierarchy:

15h47 - 🟡 FULL COURSE YELLOW 🟡 A brief procedure, presumably to test the systems, similar to this morning's Safety Car. The green flag is immediately given out again.

15:43 PM – ⛅️ Logically, it's a little warmer than this morning, 22°C in the air, 25°C on the track.

15h38 - 3:27.509 for the No. 8 Toyota, which is already getting within half a second of this morning's reference time.

15h33 - Both Toyotas are on track, and this time the No. 7 is on hard tires.

15:32 p.m. – ⚠️ The Aston Martin No. 007 got off to a bad start in its afternoon session, receiving a five-minute stop-and-go penalty for exceeding track limits during the morning session.

15:30 p.m. – 🟢 Green light at the end of the pit lane, let's go for the last three hours of driving for the day!

15h25 - Having crashed this morning, the No. 8 Toyota should be able to return to the track this afternoon for the second session:

Having been involved in an accident during the Test Day, the No. 8 Toyota is expected to return to the track this afternoon.

15h20 - Here we are again, to experience in about ten minutes the afternoon session during this Test Day of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

13pm – 🏁 The first session of the day has ended, with Cadillac in the lead ahead of Alpine We'll meet again at 15:30 PM for the second session of the day.

12h58 - The best time changed hands in the final minutes, with Filipe Albuquerque taking the lead, still driving a Cadillac, but this time number 101!

12:46 p.m. – 🟢 GREEN FLAG 🢢  The race has restarted after the collision between the Toyota and the Oreca from Algarve.

12h36 - 🔴 RED FLAG 🔴 The No. 8 Toyota collided with the No. 25 Algarve Pro Racing car at the Dunlop Chicane.

12h15 - No change at the front, with the No. 12 Cadillac still at the top of the hierarchy.

12:08 p.m. – 🟢 GREEN FLAG 🢢 The session resumes 52 minutes before the checkered flag.

12h05 - The pass-around is over; all cars are now behind the safety car. This is a procedural test to ensure everything is in order before race week.

11h54 - The Safety Car exercise continues, we are now going from three Safety Cars to just one, so the session should restart soon.

11h30 - The standings, which are therefore not going to change much in the next few minutes:

11:30 p.m. – 🟡 SAFETY CAR 🟡 As expected, race control is conducting a test of the Safety Car procedure.

11h27 - The Alpine Number 35 takes second place, with Ferdinand Habsburg behind the wheel. Alpine Indeed, we always have the desire to do well, especially since this 94th edition marks the last visit of the French brand in the premier category.

The pilots Alpine Regarding the 24 Hours of Le Mans: "We want to win this race"

11h22 - The first warning flags for exceeding track limits are starting to appear, including last year's winner, Phil Hanson, driving the No. 83 Ferrari.

11h19 - Cadillac continues to lead this Test Day, with the No. 12 car this time driven by Louis Delétraz. The Swiss driver, who is used to racing in the pack...IMSA with the same Cadillac, will make his Hypercar debut in Sarthe, replacing the injured Alex Lynn.

11:17 PM – ⛅️ The sky is becoming slightly overcast at Le Mans, but temperatures continue to rise, 17°C in the air, 33°C on the track. Hard tires are being seen for the first time on a Hypercar, on the No. 8 Toyota. Brendon Hartley.

11h13 - As a Genesis reserve driver, Jamie Chadwick is today completing the necessary laps to be able to take the wheel if needed during the week, but also historic ones, since the Briton is the first woman to drive a Hypercar at Le Mans.

11h05 - The first hour has passed, still without any major problems:

10h48 - The Genesis No. 17, driven by Jamie Chadwick, came to a stop at the Dunlop Curve, but the British driver was quickly able to get going again.

10h47 - Cadillac now tops the timesheets, with Will Stevens in car #12:

10h46 - The Test Day is also an opportunity for race control to prepare for the week ahead! A Safety Car exercise is expected to take place around 11:30 am, provided there are no incidents beforehand.

10h39 - This Test Day obviously serves to allow the teams to get into the swing of things before the big week at Le Mans, but it is also a mandatory step for all the rookies, who must complete a minimum of ten laps, including five timed laps, during this day, in order to have the right to participate in the first tests on Wednesday.

10h30 - The two Aston Martin Valkyries are now in the lead, after half an hour of the three hours allocated to this first session.

10:25 p.m. – 🟢 End of the Slow Zone, so it's back to full speed for the whole peloton.

10h24 - It was Sebastián Álvarez who made a mistake in the No. 3 Oreca; the Mexican driver was able to restart after being helped by the marshals to get out of the gravel trap.

10:21 p.m. – ⚠️ SLOW ZONE ⚠️ For the first time, the slow zone system is activated; the zone in question, where it is not possible to exceed 80 km/h, extends from Tertre Rouge to the first Hunaudières chicane.

10h20 - The No. 3 Oreca 07 of DKR Engineering is stopped at the first Hunaudières chicane, yellow flag there.

10h18 - A first look at the times from this Test Day in the three categories:

10h09 - The first timed laps are starting to arrive, with the Aston Martin Valkyrie No. 007 at 3:32.413 as the current best time.

10h03 - The BMW No. 20 is the first on track, note that 59 of the 62 cars entered have taken to the track for this start of the session, the Peugeot No. 93, and the two Lexus cars of Akkodis ASP remain for the moment in the garage but should soon be out.

10 p.m. – 🟢 The three-hour test session for the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans has officially begun!

9:56 p.m. – ☀️ The sun is shining on Le Mans, the air temperature is 15°C and the track temperature is 27°C, the cars are lining up at the end of the pit lane, ready to go out for this first session of the Test Day.

9:50 p.m. – 👋 Hello everyone, welcome to AUTOhebdo.fr to follow live from Le Mans the Test Day of the 94th edition of the great Le Mans classic!