The Porsches achieved the absolute best times in the second test session that the protagonists of the 24h of Le Mans faced today on the Circuit de la Sarthe.
After the morning tests, the drivers of the FIA World Endurance Championship and those invited by ACO had another 180 minutes available to continue working before starting the real race weekend, which will start on Wednesday.
The first yellow flag was displayed about 15′ from the green light due to a stop suffered by Isotta Fraschini at Arnage: Jean-Karl Vernay then managed to reset the Tipo 6-C prepared by Team Duqueine and set off again without any worries.
30′ following the aforementioned episode, red flag caused by Stéphane Richelmi leaving the track against the barriers at the wheel of Vector Sport’s Oreca #10 at ‘Indianapolis/Arnage’, and stewards forced to repair the guardrail .
Still at ‘Indianapolis’, problems also for the Oreca #14 of AO by TF in the hands of PJ Hyett; with half an hour left until the checkered flag, the Race Direction took the opportunity to test the Safety Car situation again.
At the end, a red flag which once again ended the tests prematurely caused a ‘long’ by Kamui Kobayashi at ‘Indianapolis’ which saw the Toyota end its race against the barriers.
In the meantime, Team WRT preferred to change the engine on the M Hybrid V8 #15 which had suffered problems in the morning and only in the last hour did the German LMDh take to the track to check that everything was in order in a handful of laps conducted by Raffaele Marciello.
#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 – Hybrid: Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa
Photo credit: Rainier Ehrhardt
As we were saying, the Porsches had their say in the HYPERCAR Class by putting their hand on the first and second times: Kévin Estre was the author of a 3’26″907 at the wheel of the 963 #6 prepared by Team Penske, beating the #4 of his colleague Felipe Nasr, author of a good improvement at the end, while the #5 was brought to fourth place by Michael Christensen.
Toyota, faster in the morning, is third this time thanks to the GR010 Hybrid #8 and with the #7 finishing tenth almost 2″ from the top, but it must also be said that a good part of the protagonists this time concentrated on putting together a good number of consecutive laps, starting to collect useful data to prepare for the race pace.
Ferrari completes the Top5 thanks to the 499P #50, 1.1 seconds behind the lead and just a few hundredths ahead of the BMW #20 in sixth, which is followed by the Lamborghini #63.
Eighth time went to the #83 Ferrari of AF Corse which still stands out among the privateers in the category, trailed by Jota’s two Porsches, ninth (#12) and eleventh (#38) respectively.
Ferrari #51 came in twelfth, followed by the Peugeot #94 and the Action Express Racing Cadillac #311 with gaps of over 2″, the Alpines further away.
#22 United Autosports Oreca 07: Gibson: Oliver Jarvis, Bijoy Garg, Nolan Siegel
Photo credit: Rainier Ehrhardt
In the LMP2 class, United Autosports is making the loudest noise: 3’34″704 is the reference time set by Oliver Jarvis with the Oreca #22, his teammate Filipe Albuquerque is fourth on the #23 at 1″9 from his colleague, but still with the best time in the PRO/AM subcategory.
Among them we find the #25 of APR and the #30 of Duqueine (second PRO/AM), fifth is the #183 of AF Corse which is third PRO/AM.
The Panis Racing #65 finishes in sixth place, overtaking the Proton Competition #9 and the Inter Europol Competition #34 in the final, followed by the APR #45 (third PRO/AM) and the Vector Sport #10 in the top ten.
#82 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R of Hiroshi Koizumi, Sebastien Baud, Daniel Juncadella
Photo credit: Rainier Ehrhardt
In LMGT3 it was Sébastien Baud who gave the record to the #82 Corvette of TF Sport, lapping in 3’59″883, a time just 0″037 better than those achieved by the Aston Martin #27 of Heart of Racing driven by Alex Riberas and Augusto Farfus with the BMW #31 of Team WRT, who are in second and third place with the same time.
The Lamborghini #60 of Iron Lynx did well in fourth, a couple of tenths from the top, with the McLarens of United Autosports and the Lamborghini #85 of the Iron Dames just behind.
BMW #46 of Team WRT was eighth, again with Maxime Martin as the fastest driver, but Valentino Rossi improved to within a couple of tenths of the Belgian.
The Top10 also includes the #81 Corvette of TF Sport and the #70 McLaren of Inception Racing, both within 0″5 of the lead in a rather short ranking that sees the #44 Mustang of Proton Competition and the Ferraris #55 of AF Corse and #86 of GR Racing.
Now a couple of days to reorganize the ideas and then we will return to work on Wednesday 12 June with two Free Practice sessions interspersed with Qualifying which will determine the best 8 worthy of competing for the Hyperpole.
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