Le Mans 24h: Cadillac tops FP1 by a mile, with rivals 1.7s down

Cadillac went fastest in Free Practice 1 ahead of the 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours, comfortably leading BMW, Alpine, Toyota and Ferrari in the Hypercar classification.

After Aston Martin topped the Test Day in 3m26.293s on Sunday, Cadillac’s Jordan Taylor was the first driver to improve on that reference on Wednesday. Less than half an hour into the session, Taylor set a 3m25.348s with the #101 Wayne Taylor Racing entry he shares with brother Ricky and Filipe Albuquerque.

It took over two hours for anyone to match – and beat – that benchmark, as Earl Bamber drove the sister Jota-run #38 Cadillac to a 3m25.673s, before recording a 3m24.773s. He subsequently went even quicker with a 3m23.786s.

Only BMW lapped within two seconds of the lead car, with Rene Rast (#20) achieving a 3m25.533s at the end of the session – preventing a Cadillac 1-2-3 as Will Stevens lapped in 3m26.033s after the #12 machine encountered a brake pedal problem.

Ferdinand Habsburg brought the #35 Alpine up to fifth in 3m26.078s, more than 0.4s faster than the #8 Toyota (one of two cars not to improve relative to the Test Day, with the #007 Aston Martin), the #50 Ferrari, the #009 Aston Martin and the #17 Genesis.

Peugeot was slowest of all, with a 3.2s deficit to Cadillac, 0.9s to Alpine and 0.4s to Genesis.

The main incidents from the session involved Hypercars. Ye Yifei lost control of Ferrari’s #83 car approaching Mulsanne corner and crashed. The Chinese driver made his way back to the pits, seemingly suffering little damage.

Moments later, veteran Frederic Makowiecki went wide on the approach to Tertre Rouge and substantially hit the outside wall on the left-hand side, with the #36 Alpine crabbing along before stopping trackside.

There was more action in the LMP2 category, with the #37 CLX Motorsport, #4 APR, #9 Proton and #183 AF Corse entries going off in the first sector, courtesy of Mikkel Jenson, George Kurtz, Harry King and Ben Barnicoat respectively, while the #14 TDS and #99 AO by TF entries had similar shenanigans at Raccordement with Tobias Luetke and PJ Hyett.

Mercedes Formula 1 junior Doriane Pin was fastest by far in LMP2, setting a 3m35.248s in the #30 Duqueine car, outpacing the #14 TDS entry by seven tenths, while IDEC Sport’s #28 car was nearly a full second off.

The GT3 class was as competitive as usual, with Akkodis ASP’s #78 Lexus narrowly edging both Team WRT BMWs, Iron Lynx’ #62 Mercedes and TF’s #34 Corvette – these four manufacturers lapped within 0.41s of one another on the 13.626km track. 

Le Mans 24 Hours – Free Practice 1 results

We want your opinion!

– The Motorsport.com Team

Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: motorsport.com