Aston Martin claimed first blood at the start of Le Mans 24 Hours week by topping the Hypercar times at the official Test Day.
Tom Gamble posted a best time of 3m26.293s aboard the #007 The Heart of Racing Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar to jump to the head of the times midway through the second of the pair of three-hour sessions on Sunday.
The time, which represented a three-second improvement over the Valkyrie’s best lap at this stage of the World Endurance Championship blue riband in 2025, stood as the fastest time of the day despite a late flurry of quick laps as the clock counted down.
The #8 Toyota TR010 HYBRID LMH was already second courtesy of a 3m26.827s from Sebastien Buemi when team-mate Brendon Hartley improved with a 3m26.401s to finish only a tenth behind the Aston.
Norman Nato’s3m26.853s in the best of the Jota team’s Cadillac V-Series.R LMDhs put him third in the times ahead of the #35 Alpine A424 LMDh run by Signatech.
Charles Milesi set the afternoon pace initially, getting down a 3m26.990s before team-mate Ferdinand Habsburg shaved five hundredths of that mark with a 3m26.938s.
#8 Toyota Racing Toyota TR010 Hybrid: Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa, Mike Conway, Esteban Masson
Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt
Filipe Albuquerque took fifth in the combined times for the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac team with the 3m27.011s with which he had led the way in the morning session.
Victor Martins claimed sixth in the #36 Alpine with a 3m27.017s set late in the afternoon.
Robin Frijns jumped to seventh as the chequered flag fell in the #20 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh courtesy of a 3m27.139s
Kamui Kobayashi took eighth in the #7 Toyota with a 3m27.167s, which was subsequently equalled by Alessandro Pier Guidi in the quickest of the AF Corse Ferrari 499P LMHs.
Le Mans debutant Genesis made it into the top 10 courtesy of late effort from Paul-Loup Chatin in the South Korean marque’s #19 GMR-001 LMDh. The Frenchman’s 3m27.174s just shaded Stoffel Vandoorne’smark in the #93 Peugeot 9X8 LMH, pushing it down to 11th.
All eight manufacturers competing in Hypercar and 13 cars in total ended up within a second at the completion of the Test Day. Times were comparable with 2025 when Hartley was quickest for Toyota on a 3m26.246s.
Test Day honours in LMP2 went to the #28 IDEC Sport ORECA-Gibson 07 driven by Job van Uitert. His 3m35.344s was just under two tenths clear of the 3m35.519s set by Mathias Beche in the #14 TDS Racing ORECA.
Third fastest over the two sessions was Matthieu Vaxiviere who had topped the times in the morning in the #183 AF Corse entry.
Ferrari was just quickest in LMGT3 with the #54 AF Corse-run 296 GT3 Evo driven by Francesco Castellacci. His 3m56.646s was less than a hundredth quicker than the second-place #91 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3-R with Timur Boguslavskiy at the wheel.
Track action for the 94th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours, round three of this year’s WEC, resumes at 14:00 local time on Wednesday, 10 June.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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