What we learned from the Le Mans 24 Hours Test Day

All eight Hypercar manufacturers and 13 cars in total ended up within a second at the pre-race Le Mans 24 Hours Test Day. The times from six hours of running around the 8.47-mile Circuit de la Sarthe suggest the 94th edition of the great race this weekend is going to be close. That’s the evidence we’ve got to go on at the moment, at least. Before we can be that little bit more sure we will have to see how the times evolve through race week of the centrepiece round of the World Endurance Championship once practice kicks off on Wednesday afternoon. 

What we have seen so far has to be a good sign in the wake of last year’s race, one dominated by Ferrari as it swept to a hat-trick of victories with the 499P Le Mans Hypercar. Forget about the 14s margin of victory for the winning satellite entry shared by Robert Kubica, Phil Hanson and Yifei Ye over the chasing factory Penske Porsche 963 LMDh driven by Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell. Ferrari was in the pound seat right through the 24 Hours. 

The FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest endured a torrid year in 2025 with the Balance of Performance, which is meant to be the final piece in the complex puzzle devised to create level playing field in Hypercar. It rarely did the job intended and certainly not at Le Mans. An improvement was promised by the twin organisers of the series for the new season. The evidence of the Spa 6 Hours in early May, a race which four or perhaps even five manufacturers might have won, and now the Test Day suggests that they have stuck to their word even if the BoP now remains a secret. The power figures and weights at which the cars are running are controversially no longer in the public domain. 

Every car in the Hypercar field has been rehomologated for the new season. All the cars went back in the wind tunnel over the winter, not just newcomer Genesis’s GMR-001 LMDh and those that had been updated with new aero: the Toyota TR010 HYBRID LMH as well as the Cadillac V-Series.R, the Alpine A424 and the BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDhs. It was necessary because the Sauber facility in which LMH and LMDh machinery competing in the WEC became off-limits in the wake of the Formula 1 team’s takeover by Audi. Now all cars go through the Windshear tunnel in North Carolina previously used for IMSA SportCar Championship participants and all LMDhs. The FIA and the ACO used the opportunity to try to come up with what have been described as “more robust homologation parameters”. Each car has to fit into a tight performance window for downforce and drag, to try to create the sought after level playing field. That window been subtly redefined for the new season. 

This time last year, there were only three cars within a second after initial running at Le Mans, and two of them were Ferraris. Of course, no one can be sure who showed their hand at the Test Day and who didn’t. But it should be pointed out that a manufacturer has nothing to gain by hiding performance at this stage. The BoP guidelines do not allow a change once the cars have hit the track at the Test Day. Though here’s a question: if there were to be a change, how would the wider world know about it given the black-out of information on the BoP?

The concertinaing of the field is also a natural development as the Hypercar category matures. Aston Martin’s position at the top of the timesheets with its Valkyrie LMH on Sunday was a case in point. Its focus over the first half of its maiden season with the car in 2025 was very much on reliability. Only after it got two cars to the finish of Le Mans without problem did the British manufacturer and The Heart of Racing factory team shift its priority to performance. 

Defending Le Mans 24 Hours winners #83 Ferrari are in the thick of the frontrunners again

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

A run of improved results in both the WEC and IMSA, where THOR is running a single Valkyrie, was a testament to that. It made it onto the podium at the North American finale, the Petit Le Mans 10-hour race at Road Atlanta last October, and might have finished the season in the WEC with some silverware with a little more luck. This year, the Valkyrie picked up its best result in the WEC so far with a fourth-place finish at Spa. 

The results of the Test Day were good news for the fans heading to Le Mans this year, but it was only a day of testing. Manufacturers and teams will tell you that it’s a case of getting your head down and working through a pre-defined programme. People had to work out how their rehomologated machinery worked on a track like no other. Even the cars that have not undergone aerodynamic upgrades under the evo joker rules for 2026 are running in revised configuration. In the case of the Ferrari, for example, that means different flicks, fences and the like, which were necessary to get it within the new performance window. 

The other big item on job list of each of the manufacturers was learning about the new range of Michelin slick tyres introduced for this season and how they work at Le Mans. Each of the manufacturers tested all three compounds – soft, medium and hard – over the course of the six hours of the test. Given the track temperatures at the time, the medium was the optimal tyre: the majority of cars recorded their best time on this specification. 

The Test Day provided answers to some questions and perhaps some half answers to others. That we had so many cars within sniffing distance of the ultimate pace has to be good news

The quickest lap time on anything other than the medium was set by Toyota driver Kamui Kobayashi, who ended up eighth in the classification, right at the start of the afternoon session when he back-to-backed the three compounds. His quickest lap came on the hards, though he was within six tenths of that mark on both the medium and the soft. 

One of Michelin’s aims with its new range of tyres is to create greater overlap in the operating ranges of each of the tyres. That appears very much to be the case, though don’t read too much into the fact that Kobayashi was quickest on the hard. Getting a clear lap is always the most important factor when it comes to a hot lap at Le Mans. 

Michelin believes that the new tyres will allow for more strategic variation. Many manufacturers suggest the reverse is true. Toyota Racing technical director David Floury reckoned that the evidence from Kobayashi’s runs at the Test Day proved that “it is now more difficult to get it wrong”.

Gamble gave Aston Martin top spot in the test

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

Further evidence of that was provided by Aston Martin. The Valkyrie’s chart-topping time of 3m26.293s recorded by Tom Gamble early in the afternoon was set on the medium. Team-mate Harry Tincknell was only four tenths slower on the soft on the run straight after the track went live at the start of the session. The second Aston, the last car within a second of the pace, posted its mark in the hands of Alex Riberas on the soft. 

Getting a picture of who was quickest over a stint wasn’t easy as a result of the need to try out each of the compounds. Among those that looked strong in this regard were Toyota, Cadillac, BMW and Alpine. Toyota driver Brendon Hartley jumped to second in the times with a 3m26.401, just a tenth or so shy of Gamble’s mark, late in the afternoon on the 19th lap on a set of Michelins. Jordan Taylor set sixth quickest time in the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac on 20-lap old tyres. Robin Frijns and Paul-Loup Chatin posted their quickest laps aboard their respective BMW and Alpine contenders on similarly old tyres. 

Had Le Mans been run last weekend, it would almost certainly have been fought out on the medium and the soft. But some forecasts are predicting much higher temperatures, perhaps nudging 30C, for the coming weekend. The problem for the manufacturers is that temperatures look set to remain low for the two days of practice and qualifying on Wednesday and Thursday, which means little chance to evaluate the hards in the conditions in which they might be raced. 

Michelin has stated that one of its aims with its new range of rubber is to increase the amount of time a set of tyres stay on the car. Quadruple stints used to be the order of the day in LMP1, but with the heavier Hypercar machinery triples became the norm. A return to quadruples has been talked about, but again it is too early to suggest whether there is a gain to be made. Secondary to that is whether Michelin will allow it. It will be undertaking analysis of the tyres after they come off the cars throughout the week before a decision is made. 

The consensus appeared to be that quadruples are unlikely, at least for now. Running four stints on a set of tyres in the new era isn’t straightforward because a minimum tyre pressure is now mandated by the organisers and monitored in real time. Staying above that mark has become an important part of the game in Hypercar. Tyres lose temperature and therefore pressure during safety car periods and when Slow Zones with a temporary 80km/h speed limit are enforced. Older tyres have less rubber and therefore heat up slower than newer tyres, so getting the temperatures and pressures back up after a caution could prove problematical. 

There’s something else that is new at Le Mans this year. The Circuit de la Sarthe has been resurfaced from the exit of the first chicane on the Mulsanne Straight right down to Mulsanne Corner. One effect seen at the Test Day was faster lap times. Gamble’s time was fractionally faster than Hartley’s quickest lap of 3m26.246s at the Test Day last year, but on average times were consistently down. 

The Test Day provided answers to some questions and perhaps some half answers to others. That we had so many cars within sniffing distance of the ultimate pace has to be good news. Whether that will still be the case as the race begins to unfold through Saturday afternoon and into the evening remains anybody’s guess. 

Could Michelin's new tyres mean the competitive picture changes in the run of up the race?

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey / LAT Images via Getty Images