Toyota Racing showed that they are on course to make sure that both Audi and Porsche take notice, as the Japanese manufacturer's pair of TS040 Hybrids set the overall pace ahead of the 24 hour race at Le Mans this coming weekend.
The first session saw the eventual third placed #3 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Filipe Albuquerque and Marco Bonanomi lead the way with a 3m23.799, before Sébastien Buemi in the #8 Toyota went seven tenths quicker in the second half of the day to take top spot, ahead of Kazuki Nakajima in the #7 sister car by just 0.142 seconds.
The #1 Audi of Loïc Duval equalled the time of the #3 car that afternoon with a 3m24.453, which put the defending champions in fourth, with Neel Jani in the #14 Porsche 919 Hybrid over two tenths slower. André Lotterer put the #2 Audi ahead of the #20 Porsche piloted by Timo Bernhard by just over a tenth of a second for sixth.
In the LMP1-L category, the #12 Rebellion R-One was 1.3 seconds quicker around the track in the hands of Mathias Beche ahead of the #13 entry, but at a lap time of 3m31.700, the car was 8.6 seconds slower than the Hybrid entries.
LMP2 saw G-Drive top the times after the day's official test, with Russian ace Roman Rusinov wrestling the #26 NISSAN-powered entry to a 3m37.795, which made it the fastest of the WEC entrants. Some of the ELMS competitors got into the mix, with the #48 Murphy Prototypes and #36 Signatech Alpine posting times to within a second of the current LMP2 WEC leaders. The next WEC entry to get into the top five was the Hong Kong-based KCMG outfit, who were 1.68 seconds off the pace set by Rusinov and placed fifth after the end of the day's running.
Porsche made their customary mark in the GTE categories, even with Ferrari taking a GTE Am car in the form of 8 Star Motorsports' 458 that was being driven by Paolo Ruberti. Fred Makowieki set the best time of the day with a 3m57.260 in the #92 Team Manthey Porsche 911 RSR, which showed a dramatic improvement of around three seconds from the times set in the morning.
Jörg Bergmeister had a day to forget, as the #91 911 flew across the gravel trap in the latter stages of the day, forcing the outfit to check for any work that would be needed ahead of the customary "pésage" that is carried out in public in front of the crowds. Ruberti would end up in front of AF Corse's #51 458, with the returning Giancarlo Fisichella just 0.008 seconds behind his countryman.
The action at Le Mans gets underway on Wednesday the 11th, as Free Practice sees the cars and drivers take on the ultimate test and build up to their assault for victory.