24 Hours of Le Mans: Cadillac sets first fastest time in pre-test

The time has come: the track action at the 2026 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans has begun. This Sunday (7 June) sees the time-honoured test day take place with two three-hour sessions. The first of the two sessions is now complete and saw Cadillac at the front of the field. Filipe Albuquerque, who shares a V-Series.R with Jordan Taylor and Ricky Taylor, lapped the 13.626-kilometre circuit in exactly 3:27.011 minutes.

"It's just great to drive at Le Mans. We can't get enough of it. The first outing was great, the Cadillac felt great and rolled perfectly. First place is something special. It doesn't mean anything - but it's nice to be so far in front. The car felt really, really good," said the Portuguese driver. "Like everyone else, we are still optimising all the details on the car. And we are sure that the competition will get closer and set faster lap times. So, definitely a good start."

Albuquerque/Taylor/Taylor are in the Cadillac from WTR. This car normally competes in the American IMSA series and makes a guest start at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. All the other hypercars that will be racing at Le Mans in 2026 are full-time WEC cars. Second place in the first session went to the Alpine A424 of António Félix da Costa, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi with a time of 3:27.339 minutes.

The Cadillac of Norman Nato, Will Stevens and Louis Delétraz achieved a time of 3:27.843 minutes, which meant third place. They were followed by the Aston Martin Valkyrie of Alex Riberas. Marco Soerensen and Roman de Angelis with a time of 3:28.086 minutes. The Ferrari 499P of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen completed the top five.

The three-hour first session was rather unspectacular in principle. The striking incident was a red flag after a collision between the Toyota TR010 Hybrid of Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa and Sébastien Buemi and an LMP2. The best time in the LMP2 class went to the Oreca 07 of François Perrodo, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Ben Barnicoat with 3:35.526 minutes. In LMGT3, the Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo of François Heriau, Simon Mann and Alessio Rovera came out on top with a time of 3:57.366 minutes.