The classic 24-hour race will be held in Le Mans for the 92nd time next weekend, and this morning the official tests leading up to it started at the Sarthe ring.
All 62 teams will work on the track for 6 hours, mainly collecting information, checking and adjusting the cars, repairing tires and also keeping an eye on the rivals, so this is a very important day.
It is especially important for newcomers to Le Mans, because according to the rules, all drivers who have either never participated in this marathon or have not been at the start at this circuit in the last five years (in this case since 2019), must test a minimum of ten laps, and at least five of them must show some time.
Last year, the #51 Ferrari AF Corse squad was fastest in testing, going on to set the best lap of the 13.626km circuit in 03:29.504 and celebrating victory a week later.
Today’s first session is already over and the experienced professional Kamui Kobayashi distinguished himself: in the Toyota GR010 Hybrid hypercar with tail number 7, he led the protocol with a time of 3:28.467.
The session was interrupted twice by red flags and by the appearance of a safety car, which was also only in test mode for the time being. Track work had to be interrupted 3 minutes before the end of the 3-hour session due to an accident involving the Swiss Cool Racing team’s Oreca sports prototype. The driver, 19-year-old Spaniard Lorenzo Flaxa, was not injured, but crashed the car quite badly and flew out of the Porsche corner.
The second result in the Hypercar class was shown by Penske Porsche driver Kevin Estre, the third was achieved by Robin Frijns, driving a BMW sports prototype of the Belgian WRT team, the fourth was Mirko Bortolotti in a Lamborghini – he is by the way Daniil Kvyat’s teammate. And the top five was completed by Robert Kubica, Robert Schwartzman’s teammate in the No. 83 Ferrari 499P of the AF Corse team.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
