3 days ago
Everything we learned at the 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours test day
What did we learn from the Le Mans Test Day? What pointers has it given us to the big race ahead? That's always the million dollar question when the cars hit the majestic Circuit de la Sarthe for the first time each year.
Not a lot is quite often the answer. This time around we probably haven't learnt who is going to win the double-points round of the World Endurance Championship this weekend, but we probably now know who's not going to be spraying the champagne come four o'clock on Sunday afternoon.
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The line has been scratched through two of the eight manufacturers competing in Hypercar based on the results of six hours of testing on Sunday. Peugeot and Aston Martin will not be adding to their Le Mans victory tallies, which stand at three for the French brand and just the one for the British marque. That much was clear from the timesheets on Sunday.
No one was expecting The Heart of Racing team to arrive for the maiden Le Mans outing of Aston's Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar car and be in the mix. That was too much to ask based on the non-hybrid contender's performances so far in WEC 2025. The two Valkyries ended up near the bottom of the Hypercar pack, no closer than three seconds to the pace of the car at the top, in the two three-hour sessions. So scrub out Aston as a victory contender.
Ditto Peugeot. Some might consider that no shock either. The French manufacturer, for all its rich sportscar history with the 905 Group C and 908 turbodiesel LMP1 contenders, has nothing better than a couple of third-place trophies to show for approaching three seasons back at the pinnacle of sportscar racing. But that would be to underestimate the pace of its 9X8 2024 LMH last time out in the WEC at Spa in May.
Peugeot would or should - either word will do in this case — be in the hunt for a podium with its #93 entry, but for a miscommunication that left the car out on track when everyone else pitted during a caution period. The 9X8 was at a similar level of performance to Alpine's A424 LMDh that did take a podium and the BMW M Hybrid V8 that might well have been in a position to do so but for a technical problem in the last hour.
The two manufacturers at the bottom of the 2025 WEC standings, Peugeot and Aston Martin, are unlikely to win in Le Mans this weekend
The two manufacturers at the bottom of the 2025 WEC standings, Peugeot and Aston Martin, are unlikely to win in Le Mans this weekend
Nikolaz Godet
Nikolaz Godet
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But on the other hand it was no shock to Peugeot that it was down at the Hypercar basement with Aston Martin, at least not since it was handed the Balance of Performance for Le Mans. It wasn't expecting a lot else.
Peugeot has a more favourable BoP than this time last year: it has lost 1kW (1.3bhp) in power, but also eight kilograms in weight. Yet the figures it has been given for Le Mans are markedly unfavourable in comparison to those at which it has run in the WEC this year. The 9X8 has been down on class minimum weight of 1030kg and maximum of 520kW or 697bhp since round two at Imola in April.
Le Mans this time last year was only the third race for the revised version of the car that came complete with a conventional rear wing for the first time. The rule makers under the 2024 BoP system edged new cars up towards competitiveness slowly. Witness the help the French car got later last season, which played a crucial role in propelling it up the order, culminating in a podium last time out at Bahrain.
The rest of the Hypercar pack looks evenly matched, or at least no one can be ruled out on the basis of what we saw at the Test Day. Ferrari, Toyota, Alpine, Porsche, Cadillac and BMW should all be regarded as genuine contenders for victory going into the 93rd running of the event this weekend
Without that help, the Peugeot was nowhere on the Test Day. In the opening session, the two 9X8s were 19th and 20th out of 21 cars in Hypercar and in the second period 19th and 21st. The closest it got to the pace was 3.1s.
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Peugeot appears to have given up hope of a fourth Le Mans victory. Loic Duval, who drives the #94 entry with Stoffel Vandoorne and Malthe Jakobsen, was in a downbeat mood straight after Sunday's sessions, borderline despondent even.
'The regulations that we have for Le Mans compared with the WEC haven't gone our way and it will be more difficult than what we saw at Spa,' he said. 'It is what it is and, for us, it hurts a little bit for sure.'
Peugeot is unhappy with its BoP for Le Mans 2025
Peugeot is unhappy with its BoP for Le Mans 2025
Rainier Ehrhardt
Rainier Ehrhardt
Duval was talking about the BoP, though that three-letter acronym never passed his lips: manufacturers, teams and drivers are precluded from talking about it by regulation. Sanction from the stewards can follow if they do.
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The BoP won't decide who wins Le Mans, or just as it doesn't at any other WEC race, but it can determine who doesn't win. Or who doesn't have a chance. And it has for Peugeot at Le Mans 2025.
The rest of the Hypercar pack looks evenly matched, or at least no one can be ruled out on the basis of what we saw at the Test Day. Ferrari, Toyota, Alpine, Porsche, Cadillac and BMW should all be regarded as genuine contenders for victory going into the 93rd running of the event this weekend.
Exclude Peugeot from the equation, and there seemed to be consensus among the competing Hypercar participants, expressed privately of course, that the rule makers, the Automobile Club de l'Quest and the FIA, have got the BoP pretty much right for Le Mans. At the second time of asking.
The BoP as published late last week is slightly different to the one shown to the teams at its beginning. The BoP for Le Mans is based on simulation rather than race data as per the rest of the WEC, and the FIA and the ACO had agreed to calculate the BoP on the basis of the cars running with their brake cooling blanked off. The changes followed the realisation that it had not done this.
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The majority of manufacturers were still pointing to Ferrari as pre-event favourite after the Test Day, not surprising given that it is unbeaten in the three rounds of the WEC so far this season with its 499P LMH and bidding for a hat-trick at Le Mans after its 2023 and 2024 victories.
The battle at the front is looking tight, though Ferrari has slightly edged clear as favourites
The battle at the front is looking tight, though Ferrari has slightly edged clear as favourites
Nikolaz Godet
Nikolaz Godet
Ferrari topped the opening session with Robert Kubica in the so-called customer entry run by AF Corse and ended up second and third in the afternoon with James Calado in the #51 factory entry and then Kubica. It looked strong on long runs, too.
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It was Toyota, however, that ended the day quickest, and by a margin of half a second courtesy of Brendon Hartley's efforts in the #8 GR010 HYBRID LMH. But its message was that not too much should be read into the one-lap pace at what is after all a test.
'We should not get carried away,' said Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director David Floury. He added that 'we don't know what the others were doing', referencing tyre choices, fuel lap and other such variables — including pure intent to chalk a time on the board. 'It is difficult to draw any conclusions from the test.'
He was suggesting, however, that Toyota remains in the chasing pack behind Ferrari. 'Ferrari are quite strong and after, we are [among] quite a few manufacturers - five, I would say - in the same ballpark,' he said. 'That is my read on the times.'
That is definitely the case for Peugeot and Aston Martin. The line has been drawn through their respective LMHs as far as any kind of challenge at Le Mans goes. The question is will we have to scratch out any more manufacturers from victory contention as race week progresses?
Hartley's table-topping time of 3m26.246s was more than a second and half up on a best lap of 3m27.615s that put him third at the Test Day last year. That can be explained by two factors: the Toyota is running with 12kW (16bhp) more power than last year and there has been some track resurfacing over the past 12 months. There is a new surface on the run from Arnage to the Porsche Curves, which has removed the notorious bump on the entry to the ultra-quick sequence.
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Alpine ended up fourth with a late run from Mick Schumacher in the best of the French manufacturer's A424 LMDhs. The first of two quick laps propelled him up to fifth, the second gained him a further place ahead of Kevin Estre in the #6 Porsche 963 LMDh. BMW took eighth with Robin Frijns in the fastest of the two M Hybrid V8 LMDhs and Cadillac sneaked into the top 10 with ninth best time from Alex Lynn in the #12 Jota Caddy V-Series.R.
Sunday's running on the Circuit de la Sarthe appears to point to six of the eight manufacturers being in the hunt at Le Mans this weekend, not all perhaps for victory, but at least for a podium. But it should never be forgotten that the Test Day is a notoriously bad indicator of what is to come during race week.
Think back to last year, and Porsche looked ultra-strong over the course of six-hours running on the Sunday beforehand. And never looked so strong again, notwithstanding the lap Estre pulled out of the bag in Hypercar qualifying to claim pole position. Porsche might have finished fourth, just 38s in arrears of the winning Ferrari, but it wasn't a genuine victory contender.
That is definitely the case for Peugeot and Aston Martin. The line has been drawn through their respective LMHs as far as any kind of challenge at Le Mans goes. The question is will we have to scratch out any more manufacturers from victory contention as race week progresses?
Who will win the 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours?
Who will win the 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours?
Marc Fleury
Marc Fleury
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