Ferrari shines in Free Practice 2 of the Lone Star Le Mans, the sixth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
In Austin the sky was still cloudy but the sun brought the temperature to 34°C when the green light was given at the end of the pit lane.
The 90 minutes available to the protagonists saw a 9-minute interruption due to Sheldon Van Der Linde going off the track at Turn 15 around halfway through the session, when the BMW-WRT driver had got into the car occupying third position with his #20 M Hybrid V8.
The teams and drivers continued their work on set-up and fuel consumption control (especially with regards to the tyres, with Michelin providing the prototypes with medium and hard compounds for this event), completing a good number of laps in total.
#20 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Sheldon Van Der Linde, Robin Frijns, Rene Rast
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
The best time in the HYPERCAR class, as we said at the beginning, goes to the 499P thanks to the 1’52″268 set almost immediately by Antonio Giovinazzi before handing over the #51 Rossa to colleagues Calado/Pier Guidi, followed at 0″052 by the #50 of Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen which sees the Calabrian as the fastest of the trio.
Van Der Linde’s BMW still finished third thanks to Robin Frijns’ previous time, despite not running again after completing 17 laps. The Cadillac and the #83 AF Corse Ferrari are also in the top five, confirming themselves as the best private cars in the category.
Toyota moves up to sixth place with the #8 GR010 Hybrid, with a 0.5 second gap, as does the #15 BMW which follows closely behind, while eighth and ninth are the Porsches of Jota, with the #7 Toyota behind them.
Lamborghini stops in 11th place and is the first to have a 1″ margin from the top, the official Porsches this time drop to 13th and 17th place, slipping between the Alpines and the Peugeots.
#5 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen, Frederic Makowiecki
Photo by: Porsche Motorsport
In the LMGT3 class, Daniel Juncadella was the one making the most of his time with the #82 Corvette of TF Sport: the Spaniard lapped in 2’05″630, keeping behind by a tenth the #55 and #54 Ferraris that Alessio Rovera and Davide Rigon (separated by 1 thousandth) put on the virtual podium in the final minutes, ousting the #87 Lexus of the Akkodis-ASP Team.
Fifth was the #60 Lamborghini of Iron Lynx ahead of the revived #91 Porsche of Manthey EMA, both with half a second behind.
Seventh is the #81 Corvette, which is 0.6″ behind the #27 Aston Martin of Heart Of Racing, ahead by a matter of thousandths of a second of the #46 BMW, in which the best driver is Valentino Rossi.
Also in the Top 10 is the #59 McLaren of United Autosports, keeping behind the #85 Lamborghini of the Iron Dames, while this time the Ford Mustangs of Proton Competition stopped in 13th and 17th place, with the #92 Porsche of Manthey PureRxcing leading the championship in 14th, 1.5″ from the leader.
Saturday will see Free Practice 3 (lasting 60 minutes) at 18:00 Italian time, followed by Qualifying starting at 22:00, with the assault on the Hyperpole reserved first for the LMGT3s and then for the HYPERCARS.
#82 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R: Hiroshi Koizumi, Sebastien Baud, Daniel Juncadella
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
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