24h Le Mans
This weekend, 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship competitors took part in the annual Prologue. The two days of testing sessions held at the Sebring circuit included first official laps completed by Porsche, Ferrari, Cadillac and Vanwall Racing in the Hypercar class and the fastest time clocked by Toyota.
This year, the FIA WEC Prologue was particularly special! The tests, organised one week before the first race, the 1000 Miles of Sebring (17 March), marked the first official appearances of the new Porsche, Ferrari, Cadillac and Vanwall Racing Hypercars. The marques join Toyota, Peugeot and Glickenhaus this season and for the main event, the 24 Hours of Le Mans Centenary (10-11 June).
The new Hypercars completed their first official laps at the challenging Sebring circuit which still uses the concrete slab landing strips of a former military airbase.
Across the four sessions, the quickest time of 1:48.208 was clocked by TOYOTA GAZOO Racing's #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid shared by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López. The #8 Toyota finished second in 1:48.216 ahead of Cadillac Racing's #2 Cadillac V-Series.R in 1:48.253. Both Toyotas performed faster than at last year's Prologue. José María López (#7 driver): "Things have started well in general. As a team, we showed good pace, but this is not necessarily a reflection of what could happen in Friday’s race. We saw everyone else improved a lot today and the lap times are much closer. We need to keep working on the car because we know the competition will continue to improve, so we need to find more speed to stay in front. But it is positive to start like this; we showed strong speed, and it was nice to see the two cars at the front so I am looking forward to next week."
Fastest times in the other two classes:
Looking to cover as many kilometres as possible and collect valuable data ahead of the 1000 Miles of Sebring, these pre-season tests gave the mechanics at Peugeot TotalEnergies and Ferrari AF Corse quite a workout. Driven by Jean-Eric Vergne, the #93 Peugeot 9X8 left the track on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday morning, James Calado in the #51 Ferrari 499P #51 made the same mistake, possibly tripped up by cold tyres. Remember heating tyres with electric blankets is no longer allowed in the FIA WEC. Ferrari revealed the incident resulted in some damage to the car's bodywork and suspension. The engineers, having already collected significant data in previous sessions, opted not to return the car to the track so they could execute repairs and confirm the integrity of the 499P.
Porsche Penske Motorsport took advantage of the Prologue to conduct tyre tests, and to work on the set-up of the 963 and the team's race strategy. The #5 and #6 963s finished fourth and fifth. Urs Kuratle, Director of Factory Motorsport LMDh: “All in all, the Prologue was extremely busy and tough for us. We didn’t have any major problems with the cars, but we did encounter a few minor ones. That meant we had to work late into the night. We still managed to cover a lot of distance and gain important insights for the race. We still have to work on the finer details of our car. While we can be quietly confident about the test times, I don’t think anyone was chasing top times in the Prologue."
The number of kilometres covered by each marque during the two days of testing sessions:
2023 FIA WEC competitors will return to the track on Wednesday for the free practice ahead of the 1000 Miles de Sebring. The race start will be given on Friday at 12:00 local time and 16:00 in the U.K.
Enjoy this photo gallery from the 2023 Prologue:
