What happened on day-one of the 2024 24h of Le Mans
Two free practice sessions with a qualifying sandwiched in between took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
Toyota showed their speed throughout practice at Le Mans as they topped both sessions, however, qualifying practice was a nightmare for the Japanese manufacturer.
It was the #8 car of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa that topped FP2 by over half a second, but during the qualifying practice the #8 machine could only manage P11.
The other Toyota led by Kamui Kobayashi had all its lap times deleted due to causing a red flag.
The red flag was caused by Kobayashi who spun through the gravel at Karting.
At the front of the field, it was BMW who surprised their rivals by going fastest.
The #15 car, driven by Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello and Marco Wittmann set a time of 3:24.465s.
Impressive once again at Le Mans, Cadillac showed their speed by claiming second place with Sebastien Bourdais, Renger Van Der Zande and Scott Dixon.
Third was the lead Ferrari, but not the car that won the event in 2023, as Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen finished +0.266s down on the top time.
Leading the World Endurance championship standings, the factory Porsche team of Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor was seventh quickest. The trio went on to claim third spot during the nighttime free practice.
Winners last year, the #51 Ferrari enjoyed a strong qualifying practice as they claimed P6.
Making it four different manufacturers in the top four was Alpine, with the #35 car of Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg-Lothringen and Charles Milesi closing their run out four tenths down on the #15 BMW.
In LMP2 Cool Racing were the team to beat as they topped the class in both qualifying practice and Free Practice.
As expected the LMGT3 class proved competitive with Proton Competition leading the way in qualifying practice, thanks to Ryan Hardwick, Zacharie Robichon and Benjamin Barker setting the best time.
