Aston Martin Valkyrie flexes in final session as Le Mans Test Day concludes

Test Day Sunday has wrapped up in preparation for next week’s 94th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, under clear, sunny skies on a beautiful late spring day in La Sarthe. In the second test session, the fastest time in the Hypercar class was set by the No. 007 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie, which went nearly 0.6s quicker than the best lap set by any other car in class.

Tom Gamble turned the racing green No. 007 Aston Martin’s best time on a set of soft compound tires; his best lap was a 3m26.293s, set just over an hour into the three-hour afternoon session.

“Overall a pretty successful day – you don’t know how you’ll be going into it against everyone,” Gamble said.

“This morning the No. 009 was P4, we saw strong pace straight away. Now we’re at the sharp end. There’s a lot of data to go through now. If we can stay like this for the race, we may be on the podium, but I’m not sure if the field have shown their hand completely or not.

“The car is night-and-day different to last year – balance is good, systems work well, it’s an absolute pleasure to drive.”

Following its accident in the last hour of the first test session, the No. 8 Toyota Racing TR010-Hybrid was able to enjoy a trouble-free afternoon, capped off by Brendon Hartley setting a 3m26.827s on medium compound tires to go second fastest. In third place was the No. 12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R. Its best lap was a 3m26.853, also set on medium tires by Norman Nato.

The two Alpine Endurance Team A424s rounded out the top five, the No. 35 ahead of the No. 36, followed by the leading car of the morning session, the No. 101 WTR Cadillac in sixth.

“It’s a good first day here in Le Mans, we managed to get through our plan,” said Charles Milesi, the fastest driver in the No. 35 Alpine this afternoon. “It hasn’t been easy with slow zones and safety car procedures that cost everyone time. But we can feel the car is a step forward from last year, especially in the Porsche Curves. The new tire compounds are also helping with the car’s consistency. This is just the beginning though; we have to improve with what we have today on last year.”

The leading Ferrari was the No. 51 AF Corse 499P in ninth, but it was also the source of the most significant drama during this final test session. Alessandro Pier Guidi slid off the track on the approach to Indianapolis corner, though the 2023 overall winner was able to drive back to the pits under power without any significant external damage.

BMW M Team WRT’s No. 15 M Hybrid V8 was only 16th fastest on the leaderboard, but turned the most laps of the session with 49, for a one-day total of 87 laps, the most out of all 62 cars on Sunday.

In LMP2, IDEC Sport and Job van Uitert led the way as the white and red-striped No. 28 ORECA 07-Gibson set a 3m35.344s with less than 20 minutes left to go to the top of the board. He was one of two LMP2 drivers to eclipse the three-minute, 36-second barrier, joined only by Mathias Beche, who set a 3m35.519s in the No. 14 TDS Racing ORECA.

Behind them was the No. 183 AF Corse ORECA 07-Gibson, which spent virtually all of this test session at or near the top of LMP2. Matthieu Vaxivière set a top time of 3m36.009s to go third fastest.

The No. 29 Forestier Racing by Panis ORECA had the fourth-fastest time, while Duqueine Team’s No. 30 car was fifth. Inter Europol Competition’s No. 343 car turned 42 laps to lead all LMP2 cars in the session, and had the sixth-best time.

As teams and drivers began to push the performance envelope, several cars received five-minute stop-and-go penalties for multiple track limits infringements. Three LMP2 cars received this penalty more than once; the No. 9 Proton Competition, No. 29 Forestier Racing by Panis, and No. 222 United Autosports cars all had to serve two such penalty stops towards the end of the day.

Horst Felbermayr Jnr also went past the limit when he spun his No. 44 Proton Competition ORECA off into the gravel at the Dunlop Chicane, though he would be able to recover to allow the No. 44 crew to proceed with the rest of its day with no other major issues.

Also of note: Porsche works driver Laurens Vanthoor turned his first laps in the No. 22 United Autosports car as a last-minute addition to the test day entry list, and RD Limited owner/driver Romain Dumas has returned from Pikes Peak and done his first laps to begin preparations for his 24th Le Mans 24.

In LMGT3, Vista AF Corse’s No. 54 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo set the fastest time, which was a 3m56.646s set by Silver specialist Francesco Castellacci, in the silver and red Ferrari. The No. 54 Ferrari also turned the most laps of all the GT cars this afternoon with 42.

That put the Ferrari less than 0.01s ahead of the No. 91 Manthey DK Engineering Porsche 911 GT3 R in second place, its best time was a 3m56.655s set by Timur Boguslavskiy, who’ll continue a trend of fast Silver drivers occupying the top places.

In the yellow No. 33 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, Jonny Edgar – another "super Silver" – set a 3m56.885 sto put the car third on the leaderboard.

13 Autosport’s Corvette was fourth fastest to end the session, followed by the No. 69 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

Race week officially kicks off Wednesday afternoon with the first Free Practice session, beginning at 2:00pm local time.

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