The Toyotas responded by being present in Free Practice 2 of the 6h of Fuji, where the home cars took the lead in the overall classification and among the Hypercars after today’s last 90′ of activity on the track.
After the one-two in the wet obtained by the Ferraris in the morning session, the Japanese afternoon did not reserve sunshine for the protagonists of the FIA World Endurance Championship, who however were able to run in the dry and some took advantage of this to carry out long sessions in preparation for the race on Sunday.
This is the case of the GR010 Hybrid #8 for example, which with the Buemi/Hartley/Hirakawa trio also achieved the best overall time in 1’29″523 ahead of the #7 of Conway/Kobayashi/Lopez, half a second behind.
The third time instead goes to Jota’s private Porsche 963 #38 in the hands of Da Costa/Stevens/Ye, 1″ from the top and very slightly better than the Ferrari #51 of Pier Guidi/Calado/Giovinazzi, while the #50 of Fuoco /Molina/Nielsen – who stood out in FP1 with slick tires at the end – is sixth, 1.3 seconds behind the leaders.
This latest 499P follows the Porsche #5 of Team Penske in the hands of Cameron/Christensen/Makowiecki and precedes the Peugeot #93 of Di Resta/Vergne/Jensen and #94 of Duval/Menezes/Vandoorne, as well as the other official 963 of Estre/Lotterer/Vanthoor (#6), one of those who has toured the least of the group.
Only 29 laps also took place for the private Porsche of Proton Competition (#99 Jani/Bruni/Tincknell), completing the Top10 Hypercar, keeping behind the Vanwall #4 prepared by ByKolles Racing for Guerrieri/Vautier/De Oliveira and the Cadillac #2 of Westbrook/Lynn/Bamber, stopped 2″ from the best time.
#50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
In the LMP2 Class comes the response from Team WRT with the Oreca #41 of Andrade/Kubica/Delétraz in 1’33″131, preceding by almost half a second the #28 of Jota (Heinemeier-Hansson/Fittipaldi/Rasmussen) and the # 23 by United Autosports (Pierson/Jarvis/Hanley).
Good recovery also for the #31 of WRT (Gelael/Habsburg/Frijns), in Top5 together with the #34 of Inter Europol Competition (Smiechowski/Scherer/Costa), while the sixth time was achieved by the #22 of United Autosports (Lubin/ Hanson/Albuquerque) ahead of the #9 of Prema (Ugran/Correa/Viscaal) and the #10 of Vector Sport (Cullen/Kaiser/Aubry).
Alpine’s #36 (Vaxivière/Milesi/Canal) and Prema’s #63 (Caldarelli/Pin/Kvyat) also finish in the top 10 with larger delays, while Alpine’s #35 (Negrao) remains at the bottom of the category. /Rojas/Caldwell) at 1″6.
In the LMGTE AM class, AF Corse wins the trio led by the Ferrari #54 of the Flohr/Castellacci/Rigon trio in 1’38″239, 0″4 faster than the 488 #21 of Koizumi/Mann/Cozzolino and #83 of Rovera /Wadoux/Pérez Companc.
Ried/Pedersen/Andlauer confirmed themselves as the best of the Porsches at the wheel of the #77 of Dempsey-Proton Racing with which they finished in fourth place, still ahead of the #56 of Project 1-AO (Hyett/Jeannette/Cairoli) and the Aston Martin #777 of D’Station Racing-TF Sport (Hoshino/Fujii/Stevenson), both +0″6 from the record.
The Porsche #86 of GR Racing (Wainwright/Barker/Pera) is seventh, the Aston Martin #98 of NorthWest AMR-Heart Of Racing in the hands of James/Mancinelli/Riberas is eighth, while completing the Top10 we have the Porsche #85 of Iron Dames (Bovy/Gatting/Frey) and the #33 Corvette of the new Champions Keating/Varrone/Catsburg.
Following at the bottom of the ranking, but with a gap of just over 1″ from the top, the Porsche #60 of Iron Lynx (Schiavoni/Cressoni/Picariello) and the Ferrari #57 of Kessel Racing-Car Guy (#57 Kimura/Huffaker /Miyata).
The weekend program continues on Saturday with the one-hour Free Practice 3, which will start when it is 3.20am in Italy, then the assault on the Pole Position with Qualifying scheduled for 7.40am Italian time.
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