And the evolution of race week format.
A view of how lap times compare by session type, along with a consideration of how this has changed as the race week format, the cars, and rules have altered over the last 15 years.
As we are a few days away from the 2026 test day there is also a look at how we should view the test day laps times verses the final race pace.
Let’s start with what has changed.
The race weekend format
Test Day
Since 2011 the most consistent part of the race week build-up has been test day. Although there have been some small tweaks. It was 8 hours long, although varied between two 4 hour sessions or a 3 and 5 hour split. In 2023 was shortened to two 3 hour sessions.
One main change was how much earlier than the race the test day was. Back in 2011 it still occurred in April – 7 weeks before the race as had been the norm for a long time. From 2012 until 2019 it was two weeks before. Since 2021 it was the weekend before.
A priority is to make sure new drivers do the laps required. Currently this is ten laps (five of which need to cross the start/finish)
In 2020 there was no test day due to COVID, although the race week had additional free practice time.
Free Practice
From 2011 – 2019 free practice was limited to only the first 4 hour session. The rest of the free practice type sessions also doubled as qualifying. In reality teams used this to prepare for the race and looked for sweet spots to put in a good time. For many the priority stayed as race preparation all the time.
From 2020 free practice was extended to longer track time than the test day. In 2020 the ACO gave competitors 12 hours to compensate for the lack of a test day. 2021-2022 it was ten hours, and from 2023 it has been 9 hours. A good chunk of running.
In this non-competitive session, the priority is to get drivers to complete their required laps; every driver must have taken part in at least one session and set a time within 110% of the fastest car in their category in that session. Each driver much complete at least five night practice laps between 10pm and midnight, and must cross the start/finish at least once during those night conditions.
A warm-up cannot be used to qualify a driver, and is not included in this analysis.
Qualifying
2011 qualifying was 6 hours in total – 3 x 2 hours. It was race prep. and qualifying if you could be bothered. That came complete with traffic of all classes potentially just getting in some laps.
In 2020 they introduced qualifying and hyperpole for the fastest cars. This has been tweaked with different session lengths, and then in 2024 became what it is now – qualifying, and two hyperpole sessions and it splits hypercar from LMP2 and GT.
Weather
Track conditions introduce variability from year to year. If a session type has more sessions and more track time there is more chance of some good running.
When there was only one free practice session the times were more susceptible conditions. Qualifying has lost some of this now it is short single sessions, although it was always influenced by if the poor weather came during the normal sweat spots like early night time running.
Rule Sets
The top class – LMP1 and Hypercar
The big change was the shift from LMP1 to Hypercar in 2021. However, there are other subtleties. Notably in how the cars were equalised:
- 2010-2013 Equivalence of Technologies (EoT) was around matching petrol/diesel using restrictors, fuel tanks, weight, engine limits.
- 2014-2017 EoT was used to match fuel types and hybrids using fuel energy per lap, fuel flow, hybrid MJ class.
- 2018-2020 EoT remained, but limited to just hybrid (Toyota) and non-hybrid (privateer) using fuel flow, stint energy, fuel capacity, and refuelling time
- 2021- Balance of Performance (BoP) was introduced with Hypercar regulations.
From 2011–2020, LMP1 was not formally a single tyre supplier, but the top cars used Michelin, with only occasional privateer exceptions such as Dunlop. From 2021, Hypercar became a formal Michelin single-supplier class.
LMP2
This has been a fairly static class. Eventually dominated by Oreca. From 2017 the Gibson engine was introduced. The cars were slowed when Hypercar was introduced. There was no EoT or BoP.
From 2011–2020, LMP2 had tyre competition, mainly Dunlop/Goodyear versus Michelin, with Dunlop/Goodyear becoming especially strong by the late 2010s. From the 2021 Le Mans race onward, LMP2 became a Goodyear single-supplier class
GT Classes
From 2011 – 2023 the cars were GTE class. Two classes; Am and Pro. Pro stopped in 2022. In 2024 LM GT3 was introduced as an Am category.
Between 2016 and 2019 There were quite a few examples of BoP adjustments between test and race, and also after qualifying.
From 2011 through the GTE era, GT was not formally single-supplier, although Michelin was dominant. GTE Am was effectively Michelin only from 2018. LMGT3 class became a Goodyear single-supplier class from 2024.
Garage 56
These single cars showcase different technologies and are not a constant. They are included in the analysis for completeness.
- 2012 Nissan DeltaWing
- 2014 Nissan ZEOD RC
- 2016 SRT41 Morgan-Nissan LMP2
- 2021 SRT41 Oreca 07-Gibson
- 2023 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 NASCAR Next Gen
Tyre Warmers
Tyre warmers were banned in Le Mans from 2024.
Summary of Le Mans Situations
Comparing Sessions
Methodology Introduction
Compares the headline fastest lap from a session type to the fastest lap by the same car in the comparison session type. The largest and lowest gain, the mean, median, and the top and bottom quartile was calculated. The race winner or pole improvement is shown where relevant.
Similar classes are combined across years:
P1: LM P1 and Hypercar
P2: LM P2
GT Pro: LM GTE Pro
GT Am: LM GTE Am and LM GT3
2011-2025 Long Term Relationship between Test Day, Free Practice, Qualifying, and the Race
- T → F: small or mixed improvement
- F → Q: clearer improvement
- Q → R: race is usually slower than qualifying
- T → R: race is generally faster than Test Day, but by less than qualifying
Test Day to Free Practice
Greater fastest lap time improvements are higher on the chart.
Test Day to Free Practice. There was no Test Day in 2020 due to COVID.
The T→F step is the weakest and most variable. P1, GT Pro and GT Am improve slightly from test day to free practice, but P2 is almost flat/slightly slower. That suggests test day already gives teams a useful baseline, and the bigger gains come later.
Since free practice became longer and over more sessions (2021) we have seen a relative improvement of free practice pace. There is now more chance to set a time with more favorable conditions. Before that it was more variable.
There is also less time between test day and free practice – are the teams now more worried about spannering a car after test day?
Free Practice to Qualifying
The F→Q step is strong across almost all classes. P1, P2, GT Pro and GT Am all improve by about 1% or more from Free Practice to Qualifying. This reflects the move from race-prep running to lower-fuel, lower-compromise lap time attempts.
The top prototype category saw a peak in qualifying improvement in 2019/2020, but has more recently settled back to the longer average.
The two amateur categories now show only a small improvement from free practice. This will be influenced by qualifying rules, who is running, and the relative importance with Hyperpole.
Free Practice to Qualifying
When comparing the two competitive session types we see that the Q→R step separates the classes. P1 and P2 lose more from qualifying to race, while the GT classes are much closer to neutral. That means the prototypes have a clearer qualifying peak, while the GT classes carry more of their qualifying-level performance into the race.
Some peaks (2022) and troughs (2024) can be seen here due to conditions
From Test Day to the Race
Looking at the difference between test day lap times and the race lap times is effectively the product of the all above differences.
There are a few notable aspects here:
- The GT classes show a bigger improvement than the prototype classes.
- The gain between test and race is much lower in the recent BoP years.
Other than the shortening of the gap between test day and race weekend, and slightly less time on track in the test day, less has changed to the session format compared to free practice and qualifying.
The last couple of years has been the extreme in this with improvements from test day to race being small for a prototypes – if not a deterioration for some! 2024 was impacted by the weather during the night.
Test day to race is covered a little more in the P1 section below.
The other comparisons:
Class Notes
Let’s start with a comparison of all classes average improvement over all years.
Garage 56 is a single car, with a different set of priorities to the others. It is included for completeness, but little can be inferred from the data.
The Top Class
It is clear that there is a difference before and after 2020. P1/Hypercar behaves more closely with the other classes when considering practice to qualifying to race.
When considering the later years the top class has the strongest qualifying effect. It finds a lot of time from Test Day and Free Practice to Qualifying, but gives so much of that back in the Race.
This is especially true after 2020/2021. This class has more ways to extract those last tenths in qualifying, has the best drivers to do so, doesn’t lose out in qualifying due to traffic like it used to, and has a greater incentive with the prize of pole at Le Mans.
There is a clear change over the years. Up to 2015 it was not unusual for cars to run quicker in the race than in qualifying. The eased off and now while the longer term average lap time loss is 1% (for the fastest lap), it is more typically 2% now. They aren’t holding back in qualifying, and they are racing an endurance race come Saturday and Sunday.
The move from LMP1 EoT to Hypercar BoP likely helped create a more controlled performance window, where qualifying became a sharper peak but race pace was more constrained by BoP, energy use, stint targets and tyre management. The latest top class shows a larger test day → qualifying gain, but a much bigger drop from qualifying → race, suggesting that peak lap time is less representative of race-fastest-lap pace than it was in the LMP1 era. Tyre influence became more controlled over time.
From Test Day to the Race
In more detail the chart below shows the recent race v. test day lap time changes.
The race winner does not stick out as having gained much in the race (or under performed in testing). In 2013 the #2 Audi went backwards from its fastest time at the test day!
Generally, the recent spread of test to race pace shows a smaller variation than 2011-2019. Perhaps an indication that there are less people turning up and learning much during the week as they tend to have more established race programs, or perhaps an indication that there is less messing around.
Post-covid 2021-2023 years were typical of the longer average, but 2024 and 2025 are unusual with a smaller improvement, or a loss of pace.
P2
P2 is more muted than Hypercar ,but the trend is similar. It still improves to Qualifying, but the race is now much closer to test day pace than it was in the earlier period.
There has been much more consistency in this effective single make class in recent years in the gain from practice to qualifying. The gain is small too.
LMP2 moved from tyre competition, mainly Dunlop/Goodyear versus Michelin, to a Goodyear single-supplier class from 2021, which likely made performance progression more consistent across cars but also reduced one possible source of variation between test Day, qualifying and race pace.
Despite the one make aspect the change from free practice to the race is very similar for P2 and Hypercar.
LMP2 had no EoT or BoP, just a move to more standardisation: the Gibson engine, Oreca dominance, Goodyear single-supplier tyres from 2021, and the deliberate slowing of the class below Hypercar.
The class still improves from test day → qualifying, but recently the test day → race gain has almost disappeared, suggesting that race pace is now more limited by class positioning, traffic, stint priorities and the reduced performance gap to GT/Hypercar traffic.
GT Pro
GT Pro is the strongest class for carrying improvement into the race. GT Pro race fastest laps are the time to see class’s peak weekend pace. Potentially they can still find laps without traffic in the race.
GT Pro shows strong continuity from test day → qualifying and test Day → race – always improving.
GT Pro ran through the GTE era with Michelin dominant even if not always formally mandatory, so tyre performance was relatively stable, and the class’s strong carry-over from qualifying to race suggests the tyres allowed race laps to remain close to peak session pace.
GT Am
GT Am behaves similarly to GT Pro, though with slightly less extreme gains.
GT Am has the effect of Pro/Am driver line-ups, so session development may reflect both car improvement and when the faster drivers were used. The class still shows a very similar pattern to GT Pro: clear gains from test day → qualifying and test day → race, with little average loss from qualifying → race, suggesting that race conditions often allowed the cars to reproduce near-qualifying levels of pace.
GT Am moved from GTE, where Michelin became effectively dominant, to LMGT3 with Goodyear as the single supplier from 2024, so tyre effects became more controlled, while the 2024 tyre-warmer ban may have made qualifying and early-stint peak laps harder to achieve cleanly.
Summary
Le Mans build-up has become more structured since 2020, with longer dedicated free practice and sharper qualifying/Hyperpole sessions.
Across classes, the normal pattern is test day slowest, qualifying fastest, with the race somewhere in between.
P1/Hypercar and P2 now show a bigger gap between qualifying pace and race pace. The general trends and movements between these two different classes is similar.
GT Pro and GT Am carry more of their build-up improvement into the race, with little drop from qualifying to race.
Rule changes matter, but much of the pattern is defined by normal Le Mans variation: weather, traffic, fuel, tyres and session timing.
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