The fastest car in the opening three-hour practice was the #38 Cadillac of Bourdais, Jenson Button and Earl Bamber, with Australian Matt Campbell’s Porsche ending up inside the top three.

The fastest time by the Cadillac was a 3m 25.148s, set in the final hour of the session, a practice that started with an early session spin at the final chicane for former Le Mans winner and New Zealander Bamber.

The Australian, Stephen Grove hit trouble in LMGT3 just before the halfway point of the session when he crashed at Turn 1 on the run towards the Dunlop Chicane.

Commentary reports stated that Grove lost the rear of the car through the fast right-hander and went nose first into the barrier on the right.

His Iron Lynx Mercedes was badly damaged in the front end, suffering a broken radiator and a lot more damage within the engine bay. This caused the first of two red flags in the opening three-hour practice session.

The team will be working hard for the next 90 minutes to get the car out for qualifying this evening.

The first three hours of practice showcased how tight this edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is going to be with four manufacturers in the top four in the Hypercar Class.

The defending race winners of Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina in the #50 AF Corse Ferrari sat at the top of the times for much of the session, ending up 0.154s down in second position.

Australian Matt Campbell showed that Porsche Penske Motorsport are well and truly in the fight. The #6 car that he is driving with Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre ended up third, just 0.4s behind the Cadillac.

Former winners in the #8 Toyota, Sebastian Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa concluded the session in fourth.

A second Porsche Penske 963 was fifth, the #5 machine ahead of the second Hertz Team Jota Cadillac and the final Team Penske 963.

Both BMW and Alpine are in the game, the #15 Team WRT BMW and the #35 Alpine ended up in eighth and ninth respectively and within a second of the benchmark time.

The two Aston Martin’s were buried down the order 17^th and 18^th. The Peugeot 9X8s ended up at the very back of the Hypercar field in 20^th and 21^st well over 3.5s away from the fastest time.

The #78 ASP Team Lexus car was fastest in LMGT3 with a 3m 57.248s time, less than 0.1s up on both the #54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari and #10 Racing Spirit of Le Mans Aston Martin.

The best performing Aussie in the class was Martin Berry, the #61 Iron Lynx Merc ended the session ninth fastest.

Yasser Shahin in the #31 The Bend Team WRT BMW M4 was 2.264s off the pace 21^st in class.

Due to the early session incident for Stephen Grove, his son Brenton and Luca Stolz ended the session at the bottom of the order.

The #16 RLR M Sport car of Ryan Cullen, Michael Jensen and Patrick Pilet were the fastest in LMP2, 0.237s up on the Tom Dillmann, Jakub Śmiechowski and Nick YellolyInter Europol Competition trio.

Qualifying for the 24 Hours of Le Mans takes place at 2.45am AEST (Friday morning).

Results: 24 Hours of Le Mans Free Practice 1