24h Le Mans
One of the hardest to call races in the history of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is fast approaching. Seven different marques in the top nine places in the opening Free Practice session helped fuel the excitement and anticipation for the 2026 edition.
Sunday, felt like a long time ago, motorsport fans had been deprived of on track action for two days at the Circuit de la Sarthe - but now the wait is over, it’s a full on schedule from now on for the 94th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as the first Free Practice session got Wednesday underway with Cadillac making it a one-two in the opening Free Practice session of the day as the #38 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac went within six-tenths off the pole time from last year with Earl Bamber chalking up a 3:23.786.
After two test day sessions on Sunday to help teams find baseline set-ups, today teams will be refining those set-ups, giving drivers valuable seat time as well as cycling through various race scenarios and qualifying runs. Teams also have a tricky balancing act over the next few days. Not only will they need to prepare for qualifying for the Hyperpole this evening, they will also want to keep their true race pace close to their chests for as long as possible - not giving their rivals any inkling of their real performance potential.
2026 Grand Marshal Sarah Bovy waved the green flag at 14:10 local time to signal the start of the three-hour FP1 session with the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Kevin Magnussen leading the 62 cars out of the pit lane.
Overnight rain on Tuesday evening at Le Mans had washed away the build-up of test day rubber at the Circuit de la Sarthe - creating a circuit that was almost ‘green’ again. Thanks to an array of support races earlier in the day a smattering of rubber had been laid down, and early in the session drivers were reacclimatising themselves to the circuit they last drove three days ago - with many drivers citing a change in grip and car balance early on.
Toyota with Ferrari and Aston Martin in close succession got close to the Sunday benchmark of 3:26.293, but it was the American Cadillac concern who were the first team to break into the 3:25, 3:24 and 3:23 this week. The 2025 pole sitting brand wanted to show their pace was not a one off and on the stroke of the first half hour the #101 Wayne Taylor Racing car driven by Jordan Taylor which topped the first test day practice session heralded its arrival - lowering the bar to 3:25.348.
Across the garage in the Hertz Team JOTA team - the #38 car with local hero Sébastien Bourdais at the controls upped the ante to muscle the gold machine into the mix in second - showing the Detroit manufacturer has strength and depth in its ranks.
When New Zealander Earl Bamber took to the wheel of the #38 late on - the Kiwi stole the show - first with a 3:24 lap and then a 3:23.786 in quick back-to-back succession. The #12 sister car with pilot Will Stevens at the controls made it a Cadillac one-two-three lock-out with 12 minutes left on the clock, before René Rast in the #20 BMW M Team WRT burst that bubble to force themselves into third in the classification.
Ferrari, after a difficult opening Sunday gave the Tifosi a glimmer of hope in FP1 as the 2024 Champions in the scarlet red #50 Ferrari 499P held third quickest for much of the session before eventually finishing seventh. Halfway through the FP1 running, the homegrown support in the grandstands was lifted with the arrival of the Alpine Endurance Team into the top three - with the French firm showing they are well and truly in this contest with an eventual fifth.
There were seven marques in the top nine positions. Heavyweights Toyota mustered up sixth and tenth at the flag. It may have been four years since the Japanese powerhouse won here at Le Mans, but the earliest adopter of the Hypercar regulations has an enormous amount of experience to draw upon, and can't be discounted from victory this weekend no matter how much the team plays down their chances.
Aston Martin who have come on leaps and bounds in the past 12 months with the development of the Valkyrie finished eighth ahead of an emerging Genesis GMR-001-Hypercar with the #009 behind the aforementioned #50 Ferrari AF Corse team.
At the other end of the Hypercar order, Genesis Magma Racing - the new kids on the block are improving with every session, and are expected for the time being to be near the foot of the Hypercar field. However, Peugeot struggled to get its pair of 9X8s dialled in and will leave FP1 with some headscratching to do if they want to make it out of the Qualifying session later today and into the Hyperpole shoot-out tomorrow. 2023 winners, the #51 Ferrari 449P - couldn’t get close to the top ten in the class this afternoon and finished bottom. Reigning champions in the #83 AF Corse team were also in difficult waters.
Disaster struck the 499P crew as Yifei Ye appeared to out-brake himself at the bottom of the Mulsanne. Luckily the Chinese driver avoided major contact with the tyre wall and managed to limp the bright yellow machine back to the pits.
Also facing drama at business end of the session - the #36 Alpine making contact with the wall!
One of the longest running formulas in 24 Hours of Le Mans history looks as exciting as ever. In the first hour alone - eight cars were separated by less a than a second as teams jockeyed for position on the timesheet.
IDEC Sport switched on early, but bearing down just two tenths behind was the top Pro/Am outfit the #99 AO by TF Sport car affectionately known as Rockie the Pegasus. Crowdstrike Racing by APR third ahead of the ever present Inter Europol competition fourth.
However, late in the day with a handful of minutes on the clock Doriane Pin propelled her ORECA to the top of the FP1 times in LMP2, with former Hypercar driver Kevin Estre in hot pursuit in second for the #14 TDS Racing team with IDEC Sport settling for an eventual third.
Elsewhere, 13 minutes into the session a yellow flag was needed to cover off a stricken #37 CLX Motorsport car which lost the rear end under braking on the esses ahead of Tertre Rouge. A Slow Zone was followed for nine minutes to allow the marshals to recover the car safely.
The #9 Proton Competition car escaped the wars in the first hour, pirouetting on the descent into Tertre Rouge. Although avoiding the barriers by a matter of millimetres, the impact on the curbs damaged the suspension meaning a trip to the pits was next on the cards.
In the GT category - the #78 Akkodis ASP team hit the ground running with Jack Hawksworth laying down a 3:55.737 early doors - a position the Lexus outfit would hold all the way through the three-hour session. It was to be four front-engined cars in the top four with the #32 Team WRT BMW second, the sister WRT car, the #69 BMW M4 LMGT3 Evo third and #62 Team Qatar by Iron Lynx Mercedes rounding out the top four.
The action doesn’t stop here. Tonight we have Free Practice 2 - allowing teams to experience running in night time conditions for the first time, but before then jeopardy…
We have the qualifying session for the Hyperpole for all classes. This evening we will find out the top 15 in LMP2 and LMGT3 and the quickest 15 in the Hypercars. Those cars will advance to tomorrow's Hyperpole. The rest will have to agonisingly watch from the sidelines. Get ready and draw breath!
Top 5 Classification in FP1:
1. Cadillac V-Series.R #38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA – Sébastien Bourdais / Earl Bamber / Jack Aitken – 3'23''786
2. Cadillac V-Series.R #101 Cadillac WTR – Ricky Taylor / Jordan Taylor / Filipe Albuquerque – + 1''652
3. BMW M Hybrid V8 #20 BMW M Team WRT – Robin Frijns / Rene Rast / Sheldon van der Linde – + 1''747
4. Cadillac V-Series.R #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA – Louis Delétraz / Will Stevens / Norman Nato – +2''247
5. Alpine A424 #35 Alpine Endurance Team – António Félix Da Costa / Charles Milesi / Ferdinand Habsburg – + 2''292
Catergory Leaders:
