Michelin leads all classes at Le Mans Test Day

June 4, 2018

Michelin leads all classes at Le Mans Test Day

June 4, 2018

Cars running Michelin tires led all four classes on the 24 Hours of Le Mans Test Day, held Sunday at the 8.469-mile Circuit de la Sarthe.

Toyota Gazoo Racing led overall and in LMP1 with its No. 8 TS050 Hybrid. Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso and Jose Maria Lopez shared the car. Alonso’s lap of 3:19.066 was the best time. Lopez will race in the sister No. 7 car.

Rebellion Racing’s No. 3 R13 Gibson was second. Young guns Thomas Laurent, Mathias Beche and Gustavo Menezes were only 0.614 of a second behind at 3:19.680.

Porsche led the way in the competitive GTE-Pro class, in the top two spots. Its No. 93 911 RSR, supported by IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship stalwarts CORE autosport, was first.

Patrick Pilet, Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber share this car, and posted a best time of 3:52.551.

One of the Manthey Racing-supported, FIA World Endurance Championship-entered Porsches was second. All four of the Ford GTs were next, from third through sixth. The two U.K.-entered cars finished ahead of the two U.S.-entered cars from the Chip Ganassi Racing team.

Porsche and Ford have led in IMSA’s GT Le Mans class this year, and have also started the FIA WEC season strongly.

In the pro-am classes, DragonSpeed (No. 31 Oreca 07 Gibson, pictured right) led LMP2 at 3:27.228 and Dempsey Proton Racing (No. 77 Porsche 911 RSR) led GTE-Am at 3:55.970.

DragonSpeed had a busy weekend with Elton Julian’s team having worked to build up a new BR Engineering BR1 Gibson in advance of the test in LMP1. The team needed to source a new chassis following Pietro Fittipaldi’s accident during the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps qualifying session.

There were also more than 15 drivers who raced in IMSA’s event at Detroit’s Belle Isle Park who made the trip to Le Mans for the test day either by private jet or commercial airlines.

Patrick Lindsey, an American who races for the Project 1 Porsche team in the FIA WEC, flew a number of drivers from Detroit including fellow Porsche drivers Patrick Long and Christina Nielsen as well as Ben Keating, Renger Van der Zande and more.

The session rundown is below.

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