Cadillac and Corvette feel at home and take the lead at the end of Free Practice 3 of the Lone Star Le Mans, the sixth round of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship.
In Austin, cloudy skies and slightly lower temperatures than yesterday (27°C), although the worst threats seem to be for the 6h race on Sunday, with heavy rain forecast.
A few rays of sunshine made their way into the sky, while race direction also declared the track wet with a few intermittent drops of rain in the first part of the 60-minute session, briefly interrupted with 20 minutes to go by a Full Course Yellow to clear debris from Turn 1.
Most teams preferred to do long runs to put in the final touches for the race and the best times were mostly achieved in the early laps, with the classifications rather tight in both categories.
#51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Among the HYPERCARS, the most used mix was the medium, but obviously it should be underlined that everyone thought about taking care of their own little garden, not knowing the fuel loads and the condition of the tyres.
Cadillac put together 18 consecutive laps with Alex Lynn, able to immediately set the limit at 1’51″471 before dedicating himself to consecutive passes, then leaving room for his colleague Earl Bamber. The Briton seemed happy with the work done, however indicating Ferrari and Toyota as the favorites on pace.
The V-Series.R overall has a 0″383 margin on tenth place and the cars finishing closest to them are Ferrari and Toyota: the 499Ps take second place at +0″040 with the #50, fourth with the #83 of AF Corse – still the best of the private cars – and seventh for the #51, while the GR010 Hybrids #7 and #8 are third and fifth, respectively, less than a tenth off the top.
The fastest of the Porsches was the #12 of Jota, which stopped sixth at +0″2, its twin #38 finished tenth, behind the #99 of Proton Competition and ahead of the official 963s #6 and #5 managed by Team Penske, on which various suspension adjustments were made over a long period of time, with no great satisfaction being achieved with regards to the balance.
Alpine achieved an eighth time with the #36, while the #35 was 13th behind the Peugeots and BMWs, the latter divided by Lamborghini.
#81 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R: Tom Van Rompuy, Rui Andrade, Charlie Eastwood
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
In the LMGT3 class, a one-two was achieved by the TF Sport Corvettes driven by the #81 with Charlie Eastwood taking the lead in 2’05″351, 0″173 faster than the #81 driven by his colleague Daniel Juncadella.
Third in the final stages was the Ferrari #54 of AF Corse thanks to Davide Rigon with a gap of 0″3, just ahead of the McLaren #59 of United Autosports and the Aston Martin #27 of Heart of Racing which completed the top 5.
Sixth fastest time for the #60 Lamborghini of Iron Lynx which is half a second behind the top spot, seventh instead is the #55 Ferrari with the #87 Lexus of Akkodis-ASP and the #95 McLaren of United behind it, which together with the #92 Porsche of Manthey PureRxcing closes a Top 10 that sees the cars within 0″8 of each other.
Among the BMWs, the #46 is still the best and Valentino Rossi confirms himself as the fastest of the crew, obtaining 11th place, 1″ from the leader. This time the Ford Mustangs are behind, stopping 15th and 17th, in the middle of which is the Porsche #91 of Manthey EMA.
Qualifying is scheduled for 3:00 PM local time (10:00 PM in Italy) with an assault on the Hyperpole.
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