Le Mans 24 Hours: Toyota leads red-flagged opening practice

Nakajima posted a time of 3m21.656s in the #8 Toyota TS050 HYBRID in the final stages of Thursday morning's three-hour opening practice session.

That eclipsed team-mate Brendon Hartley's previous best of 3m21.951s, while the #7 car also improved in the final minutes with a 3m21.990s from Kamui Kobayashi.

The #7 Toyota didn't record a representative time for the first hour of the session because it only completed installation laps as part of the aerodynamic calibration process for the latest Le Mans body package on the car.

The best of the Rebellion Racing privateer LMP1 entries was just over a second down on the second of the Toyotas.

PLUS: Can Rebellion cause an upset at Le Mans?

Gustavo Menezes posted a 3m23.155s in the #1 Rebellion-Gibson R-13, which compared with the 3m25.216s from Louis Deletraz in the team's second entry.

The ByKolles ENSO CLM-Gibson P1/01 brought up the rear of the LMP1 field on a 3m28.442s from Oliver Webb.

The times were slower than in first free practice for Le Mans held in June last year, when Kobayashi was fastest in the opening four-hour afternoon session on a 3m18.091s.

The Danish High Class squad led the way in LMP2 courtesy of a 3m29.873s from Le Mans debutant Kenta Yamashita aboard its ORECA-Gibson 07.

The Toyota junior driver eclipsed a 3m29.918s from Giedo van der Garde in the TDS Racing-run Racing Team Nederland ORECA with 20 minutes remaining to make it two Michelin-tyred cars at the top of the order.

Third place went to the Goodyear-shod Jota Sport ORECA in which Antonio Felix da Costa set a 3m31.206s early in the session.

The French Duqueine team end up fourth with a 3m31.309s, while the Jota-run Jackie Chan DC Racing entry was fifth on 3m31.348s.

The two factory Aston Martins were top GTE Am for the majority of the session.

Alex Lynn ended up fastest on a 3m53.930s in car #97, which was more than a second up on the 3m54.992s recorded by Nicki Thiim in the sister #95 Vantage GTE.

James Calado was close behind on a 3m55.186s in his factory AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.

That was eight tenths quicker than the 3m55.999s from the second of the works Ferraris shared by Davide Rigon, Miguel Molina and Sam Bird.

The two privateer GTE Pro Ferraris run by Risi Competizione and Scuderia Corsa took fifth and sixth positions.

The two factory Porsche 911 RSR-19s, making its first appearance at Le Mans, brought up the rear of the eight-car GTE Pro field.

GTE Am was led by the works-run Aston Martin Vantage GTE on a 3m55.484s from Ross Gunn.

That put the car eight-tenths up on Tom Blomqvist's HubAuto Ferrari in second place.

The session was briefly red flagged during its middle hour when the #89 GTE Am Project 1 Porsche had to be recovered from Indianapolis.

Practice resumes 2:00pm local time before the first qualifying session at 5:15pm.

The fastest six cars in each class (and all LMP1 entries) will go through to the half-hour Hyperpole session on Friday.

Le Mans 24 Hours - FP1 Results