Cadillac led the opening practice for Le Mans in 2025 24 Hours after leading two red-wound FP1s from Sebastien Bourdais, Jenson Button and Earl Bamber’s No. 38 Jota-Run Car.
As many incidents interrupted a three-hour run, the opening session prior to the 24-hour Le Mans 2025 edition proved to be lively.
NO38 Jota Cadillac has overcome many issues to ultimately put the FP1 on top after making the car fastest on the 3M25.148S lap with a slow qualifying simulation from Sebastien Bourdais.
He led the entry for the NO50 Ferrari AF Corse, with Antonio Fuoco posting a 3M25.302S lap early in the session, and the crew is not suited to the checkered flag.
The Porsche was completed in the top three and hypercar class with the NO6 963 entry driven by Matt Campbell.
The three-hour session began at 2pm local time, but was interrupted in just 10 minutes on full course yellow as the NO24 Nielsen Racing LMP2 car was beached on gravel.
When the Green Flag returned, the NO38 Jota Cadillac had a near miss at Ford Shane when the car driven by the then Earl Bambor had spin-off and nearly made contact with the LMGT3 vehicle when he joined again.
Bamber complained about the braking issue, reflecting complaints made by other Cadillac drivers since last Sunday’s official test day.
After the first 30 minutes of the run, the NO50 Ferrari led with a 3M25.302S, but this didn’t improve until the final time.
In just under an hour and 45 minutes, the red flag was first issued when Steve Glove’s NO63 Iron Links AMG-GT3 crashed on his way to Dunlop Chicane.
The session was restarted immediately after about 10 minutes, but stopped again after 1 hour and 20 minutes as it was on track.
The final part of the session was almost successful, with the NO38 Jota Cadillac firing at FP1 top 3M25.148, just under 40 minutes left.
The NO38 car had session 0.154 removed from the field, and Jenson Button reported on the radio that the car was working better than it had been a few hours ago.
Fuoco’s 3M25.302S lap continued to follow Le Mans winner Ferrari into second place, while Porsche sneaked into third place with the NO6 car.
Toyota was fourth in the No.8 cars of Sebastian Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa, but entries from No.5 Porsche Penske Motorsports Julian Andrauer, Michael Christensen and Matthew Jaminette completed the top five.
Will Stevens placed the NO12 Jota Cadillac in sixth place ahead of the NO12 Porsche Penskeker, NO15 WRT BMW, NO35 Alpine and NO99 Proton Competition Management Porsche.
The fastest time in the LMGT3 class was to Jack Hawkworth, Fingeshitz and Arnold Robin’s NO78 Akkodis ASP team Lexa Crew, featuring Valentino Rossi, and the NO46 WRT BMW crew was 11th in the class.
Top LMP2 honors were presented to the NO16 RLR M Sport Oreca 07 driven by Ryan Cullen, Patrick Pilllett and Mickel Jensen.
