Cadillac looking strong in opening Free Practice for 24 Hours of Le Mans

Credit: Noah Romana

The No.38 Cadillac was the quickest in the opening practice session for the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans, with three Cadillacs in the top four. Doriane Pin was quickest in her No.30 Duqiene LMP2 and Jack Hawksworth in the No.78 Akkodis ASP Lexus topped LMGT3 in the three hour session.

The session was delayed slightly due to a red flag in the Ferrari Challenge practice session that took place beforehand. The original start time of 14:00 was pushed back to 14:10.

The majority of the session didn't see much improvement in terms of the timing tower, but in the final half an hour teams stuck on the qualifying boots and went for it.

Earl Bamber put the No.38 Jota Cadillac on top with a 3:23.786, over 1.5 seconds quicker than the No.101 Wayne Taylor Cadillac that lead most of the session. The No.38 had an issue late on though, limping back to the pits slowly towards the end of the session and the team going to work on the car.

The No.20 BMW that won the last World Endurance Championship (WEC) round in Spa was third. The No.12 Jota car made it three Cadillacs in the top four, ahead of the No.35 Alpine. Then came the No.8 Toyota in sixth, followed by the No.50 Ferrari, No.009 Aston Martin, No.17 Genesis and the No.007 Aston rounding out the top 10.

The No.7 Toyota was 11th, with the No.36 Alpine that brought out the sessions final yellow in 12th. Frederick Makowiecki went wide onto the grass and hit the barrier before Tetre Rouge. The car crabbed it's way down the Mulsanne to find a safe place to stop.

Credit: Noah Romana

The No.19 Genesis found it's way to 13th, ahead of the No.15 BMW, No.51 Ferrari, and the No.93 Peugeot. The No.83 Ferrari was next, after late on the session Ye Yifei missed his braking point at Mulsanne and went off at high speed. He had to limp it back to the pits, but did so all under his own steam, with the session neutralised by a FCY. The No.94 Peugeot rounded out the Hypercar order.

LMP2 provided a lot of action early on in the session. We didn't even have to wait 15 minutes for the first interruption of the session. Theo Jensen in the No.37 CLX LMP2 went off in the Essess in sector one. Race control called a slow zone in that part of the track so the car could be recovered.

George Kurtz in the No.4 Crowdstrike by APR LMP2 had an off at the same spot on the track just 20 minutes later. Another slow zone came out as that car was extracted from the gravel bed.

The No.9 Proton with SevenXSeven Racing car had a spin also in sector 1 with Harry King at the wheel. King just brushed the wall in the short shoot before Tetre Rouge, but got away without needing to be extracted. He did have to limp back to the pits though, with what looked to be rear left suspension issues.

On his way back, the car deposited a bit of advertising board it took from the wall in sector 1 in the Porsche Curves. The incident was quite localised, but race control decided to give the teams a run-through the procedure.

Doriane Pin was quickest though in the No.30 Duqiene car with a 3:35.248. She was seven tenths quicker than Kevin Estre in the No.14 TDS Racing car - who was also quickest in Pro-Am. Then came the No.28 IDEC Sport car, the No.99 AO Racing and the No.22 United Autosports rounding out the top five.

The rest of the top 10 included the No.183 AF Corse, No.4 Crowdstrike by APR, No.43 Inter Europol, No.29 Forestier Racing and the No.25 APR.

Credit: Noah Romana

There were no major incidents coming from the LMGT3 ranks, the drivers there having a quiet session that was led by the No.78 Akkodis ASP Lexus on a 3:55.737. That time was exactly a tenth quicker than the No.32 WRT BMW, who was in turn just 0.001 quicker than the sister No.69.

The No.62 Qatari Iron Lynx Mercedes was fourth, ahead of the No.34 TF Sport Corvette. The No.87 Lexus, No.27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin, No.33 TF Corvette, No.61 Iron Lynx Mercedes and the No.92 Manthey Porsche rounded out the rest of the top 10.

The Le Mans weekend continues at 18:45 local time today, with LMP2 and LMGT3 qualifying, which is directly followed by Hypercar qualifying.