With most teams opting to provide drivers with real-world pitstop practice, only 12 of the 23 Hypercar entries set a time during the short 15-minute pre-race session for the World Endurance Championship’s blue ribbon race, with Kubica at the helm of the Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar 1-2 in his client’s example #83 AF Corse.

His lap time of 3 minutes 29.260 seconds was 0.409 seconds faster than Antonio Giovinazzi, with the defending Le Mans winner’s number 51 entering the factory losing time in the final sector after setting two purple sectors earlier in the lap.

Meanwhile, De Vries returned to the pits with a damaged nose in his No. 7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID, which will start from the back of the Hypercar grid after Kamui Kobayashi observed red flags in qualifying.

The Dutchman was caught approaching ASP van der Linde’s Lexus RC F GT3 on the exit from Porsche Curves and was unable to avoid contact with the DTM points leader before spinning.

The stewards found that van der Linde was mainly to blame for the collision because the South African driver’s car slowed down while he was still on the race track.

He was assessed a stop-and-go suspension penalty, and the team must race against the clock to repair the damage in time for the race.

Another incident occurred at the first Mulsanne Chicane chicane when Naveen Rao’s Algarve Pro Racing ORECA-Gibson 07 LMP2 car struck the side of Sebastien Bourdais in the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series. R LMDh, although both cars continued to run.

#83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman, Yifei Ye

Photo: Alexander Trienitz

Charles Milesi posted the third-fastest time in the #35 Alpine A424 LMDh, 1.843s behind Kubica, while pole-sitter Laurens Vanthoor in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 LMDh finished fourth.

This relegated Will Stevens to fifth in the rebuilt No. 12 Jota Porsche 963 LMDh, which completed its first laps on track since Callum Ilott’s crash during night practice on Wednesday, following a successful shakedown on the Le Mans runway last night.

Frederic Makowiecki was sixth in the #5 PPM 963, ahead of the Cadillac Action Express of Jack Aitken and Nicolas Lapierre in the second Alpine race. Sebastien Buemi (Toyota) and Felipe Nasr in the third PPM Porsche rounded out the top ten.

Ben Barnicoat led the LMP2 times in his No. 183 AF Corse ORECA. The Briton’s lap time of 3:36.884 s gave him an advantage of 0.651 s over Mathias Beche, who started the Panis Racing race, and Job van Uitert was third in the IDEC Sport race.

In LMGT3, works driver Daniel Serra set the pace in the GR Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, which will start the race from the back of the field after power delivery issues meant he was unable to set a time in qualifying.

The Brazilian was 0.204 seconds faster than Dennis Olsen’s No. 88 Proton Ford Mustang, with Frederik Schandorff’s pole-sitting Inception Racing McLaren 720S EVO third.

The warm-up took place on a track that race control described as wet, although the rain only really began to fall as the cars returned to the pits at the end of the session.

The 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans will start at 4pm local time (3pm BST).

2024 24 Hours of Le Mans: Warm-up results