The Fuji weekend began under the banner of Porsche for the protagonists of the FIA World Endurance Championship, who under grey skies faced the first 90′ of free practice to prepare for the 6h that will take place on Sunday, valid as the penultimate round of the 2024 season.
The only interruption in the session came with 20 minutes left on the clock, when Grégoire Saucy made contact with Alex Lynn’s Cadillac while overtaking and stopped his #59 McLaren at Turn 10.
With the United Autosports 720S removed, operations resumed with just under a quarter of an hour to spare, during which everyone continued with their set-up work, trying to rack up as many laps as possible to gather useful data and information.
In the HYPERCAR class, as we were saying, it was the 963 #6 of Team Penske that took the lead in 1’30″561 thanks to Laurens Vanthoor, who was very fast in the opening stages and was able to precede the Toyota #8 by just 0″010, with Ryo Hirakawa being the best.
Antonio Fuoco puts the #50 Ferrari in third place with a delay of 0″5 and behind the Calabrian from Maranello the positions are similar, with the #5 Porsche following the official 499P by 14 thousandths, keeping the #7 Toyota and the #83 AF Corse Ferrari behind by one hundredth.
The others were also very close together, with the Peugeot #94 seventh at +0″729, just ahead of the Alpine #35, Porsche-Jota #38 and Ferrari #51 which completed the Top 10.
Eleventh position for the BMW #15 at 0″8 from the top and with 51 laps completed, with the Cadillac and its twin MHybrid V8 #15 behind. The Lamborghini starts with a 1″192, stopping 17th, between the Peugeot #93 and the Porsche-Jota #38.
As for the LMGT3 class, the disappointment of United Autosports over the Saucy episode was mitigated by the record achieved by the McLaren #95 driven by Marino Sato in 1’40″528, equalled by the Ferrari #55 of AF Corse in the hands of Alessio Rovera, which did 0″265 better than its twin #54.
Also doing well was the #60 Lamborghini of Iron Lynx, which achieved the fourth fastest time with a 0″321 delay from the leader, pulling behind the #88 Ford of Proton Competition and the #78 Lexus of Akkodis ASP.
The #81 and #82 TF Sport Corvettes are seventh and eighth, leaving behind the #59 McLaren and the #777 Aston Martin of D’Station Racing. The Porsches are further back, with the #91 Manthey EMA in 14th behind the #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini and the first to get more than 1″ off the lead, while the #92 Manthey PureRxcing – which could be crowned Champion as early as Sunday – is bringing up the rear, in the wake of the #46 and #31 Team WRT BMWs.
Free Practice 2 is scheduled for 3.30pm local time, 8.30am in Italy.
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