The night is still young at the Circuit de La Sarthe as the sixty-two entries in this years 24 Hours of Le Mans have been busy with the opening Free Practice session earlier today before turning their attentions to this evenings opening Qualifying session ahead of Hyperpole tomorrow.
Today was the first track action of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship Blue Ribband event after the closing laps of the official Test Day on Sunday which features the two Ason Martin Valkyrie Hypercars and two Aston Martin Racing Vantage LMGT3 entries from the Heart of Racing team and the invited AMR Vantage LMGT3 from the Racing Spirit of Leman team.
Whilst Free Practice one earlier today didn’t really show any surprises from the Aston Martin powered camp in terms of lap pace, the two later thirty-minute-long Qualifying sessions for both the LMP2/LMGT3 and then Hypercar classes certainly did with four of the five cars making it through to the next qualifying stage tomorrow.
They were the four Heart of Racing entries which saw both Gray Newell and Ian James take their #27 and #23 cars (respectively) through the knock-out stage which saw the LM24 debutant (Newell) beat the more established and experienced racer (James) to finish the session third fastest compared to James’ eight best time in class.
The AMR powered casualty here was the #59 Racing Spirit of Leman entry of Clement Mateu who appeared to lack overall pace in comparison to his stable mates along the pit lane where the Frenchman could do no more than finish P22 in class. That will be their starting position for Saturday’s start to the race.
Then in the Hypercar class, it was the turn of Tom Gamble and Alex Riberas to take out their #007 and #009 cars for their opening thirty-minute knock-out stage, where Gamble indicated intent by claiming the fastest lap time for much of the session. Next time around and Riberas was right behind his team-mate to chalk up and Aston Martin 1-2 before the final laps saw others pip them for pace into the dying minutes of the session for the cars to finish P9 and P7 in class – both safely through to Hyperpole.
Before that, however, all the runners will have a further Free Practice 2 session to look forward to tonight (starting at 22:00hrs local tonight) within which event rookies must complete their mandatory lap requirements.
Free Practice Three tomorrow afternoon will precede the following Hyperpole 1 and 2 sessions which will start after the first of the support races from 20:00hrs local.
Photo credits – DPPI / Teams / social media