Test Day / Morning : Glickenhaus threatens Toyota

If it didn't complete enough laps (26) and was immobilized for a while in its pit, the #709 Glickenhaus almost arrived at the lunch break with the best time of the morning. Romain Dumas drove a lap of 3'31''735 in the last hour. But the Frenchman was finally overtaken by José-Maria Lopez, who clocked a 3'31''626 in the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid. 

Fifth, the #36 Alpine A480 was only 1'167 off the pace, which is very promising for the show, even if the competitors often try to hide their game during this Test Day for fear of seeing the BoP evolve in their disadvantage by the start of the race on Saturday, June 11 at 4pm.

In LMP2, the #38 Oreca 07 quickly established itself at the top of the order with a time of 3'33.964 and never relinquished its position. The Stevens-Gonzalez-Felix da Costa trio finally beat the #22 United Autosports 07 of Albuquerque-Hanson-Owen and the #13 TDS Racing x Vaillante of Beche-Cimadomo-Van der Helm. Inter Europol Competition and Team Penske are fourth and fifth. 

Corvette Racing took the lead in GTE Pro, with the #64 C8.R of Milner-Tandy-Sims (3'54''690) ahead of the #63 of Catsburg-Garcia-J. Taylor. But the first one stopped at the end of the session (broken suspension?).

But this is nothing compared to the Porsche GT Team. First of all, the #92 Christensen-Estre-Vanthoor stopped at Tertre Rouge before the #91 Gianmaria Bruni went out at Muslanne and then stopped at Indianapolis. The two Germans completed only 17 and 24 laps respectively, compared with nearly 50 for the two Americans. AF Corse, meanwhile, kept a low profile, with the #51 Calado-Pier Guidi-Serra car losing almost a second to the best performance in its class.

A nice surprise in GTE Am with the best time for the #85 Iron Dames Ferrari driven by Michelle Gatting-Rahel Frey-Sarah Bovy. Thanks to a lap of 3'55''678, it beat the #99 Hardpoint Motorsport Porsche and the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari.

The session was interrupted by a red flag after the #65 Panis Racing Oreca lost its wheel. In other incidents, Paul Dalla Lana (#98 Aston Martin) hit the tires just before the Porsche corners, while a number of cars were seen spinning, including the #71 and #66 Ferraris, which even stopped at Mulsanne.

See you at 2pm for the second session of this Test Day, to be followed again in Live Text on Endurance-Info.com.