Great battle on the edge of tenths in the 90 ‘of Free Practice 2 of the 6 Hours of Monza, valid as the fourth event of the FIA World Endurance Championship 2022.
Under a beautiful sun that begins to heat up the Brianza circuit, the best time in the Hypercar Class is achieved by the Toyota GR010 Hybrid # 8 of Buemi /Hartley/ Hirakawa in 1’37 “692, beating by a whisker the rookie Peugeot 9X8 # 93 of Vergne / Di Resta /Jensendetached by just 0 “083.
Third and close to them is the Glickenhaus LMH # 708 in Dumas / Pla /Deraniwhich is only a tenth behind the other 9X8, the # 94 driven by Duval /Menezes/ Rossiter.
The Alpine A480-Gibson # 36 of Team Signatech follows in the hands of Negrão / Lapierre /Vaxivièrewith the Toyota # 7 of the reigning champions Conway /Kobayashi/ López sixth and almost half a second behind her ‘twin’.
# 93 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8 by Paul Di Resta, Mikkel Jensen, Jean-Eric Vergne
Photo by: Morgese / Gandolfi
Moving on to the LMP2 Class, it is necessary to point out some problems created by three Oreca 07-Gibson during the tests. A few minutes after the start, the # 35 of Ultimate crashed out at the ‘Prima Variante’ causing a Full Course Yellow, while subsequently a red flag was exposed for an exit of the # 44 of ARC Bratislava at the ‘Lesmo 1’, with the # 1 of Richard Mille Racing stops.
When operations resume, the record is signed by the # 22 of United Autosports (Hanson /Albuquerque/ Owen) in 1’38 “917, beating AF Corse # 83 by a couple of tenths that with the trio Rovera/ Nielsen / Perrodo confirms to be at the top of the PRO / AM category.
The WRT guys climb to third place (# 31 Gelael /Frijns/ Rast), closely followed by the aforementioned ARC Bratislava (# 44 Konôpka /Beche/ Van Der Helm), second PRO / AM.
In the top 5 of the lot we also have United Autosports # 23 of Lynn/ Jarvis / Pierson, with # 41 of RealTeam by WRT (Habsburg/ Andrade / Nato) who is seventh placing among the Jota # 28 (Jones /Aberdein/ Rasmussen) and # 38 (Stevens/ Da Costa / Gonzalez).
Prema comes down ninth (# 9 Kubica/ Delétraz / Colombo), to complete the Top10 together with Vector Sport’s Oreca # 10 (Bourdais/ Muller / Cullen).
Eleventh the Oreca # 45 of Algarve Pro Racing (Thomas / Allen /Binder) and third in PRO / AM, keeping behind the # 1 of Richard Mille Racing (Chatin / Wadoux /Milesi), # 34 of the Inter Europol Competition (Gutiérrez /Brundle/ Smiechowski) and Ultimate # 35 (J.Lahaye/M.Lahaye/Heriau), fourth PRO / AM.
# 31 WRT Oreca 07 – Gibson by Sean Gelael, Robin Frijns, Rene Rast
Photo by: Paul Foster
In the LMGTE PRO Class it is still a Porsche of the Manthey team that dictates the pace: this time it is the 911 RSR – 19 # 91 of Makowiecki /Bruni to soar in 1’46 “245, trimming gaps around half a second to the AF Corse 488s driven by Fuoco /Molina (# 52) and Calado/ Pier Guidi (# 51).
He drops fourth, slightly lowering his time – which yesterday was the best of the group – the Porsche # 92 of Christensen/ Estre, the Corvette C8.R # 64 of Pratt & Miller entrusted to Milner/ Tandy.
# 46 Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR – 19 by Matteo Cairoli, Mikkel Pedersen, Nicolas Leutwiler
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
Finally, even in LMGTE AM a Porsche jumps in front of everyone with a good lap in the final minutes. Cairoli’s # 46 /Pedersen/ Leutwiler (Team Project 1) stops the hands at 1’47 “738, mocking the two Ferraris of AF Corse – # 21 of Mann for a matter of cents /Vilander/ Ulrich and # 54 of Cassidy/ Flohr / Castellacci – and the Porsche # 86 of GR Racing (Pear/ Wainwright / Barker).
Keating / Chaves / Aston Martin Vantage # 33 climbs fifthSorensen (TF Sport), behind him we find the Porsche # 77 of Dempsey-Proton Racing (Tincknell /Priaulx/ Ried), the Ferrari # 60 of Iron Lynx (Cressoni / Schiavoni /Fisichella) and the Porsche # 56 of Team Project 1 / Inception (Iribe / Millroy /Barnicoat) who had finished in the lead yesterday.
The Top10 also includes the Aston Martin # 98 of NorthWest AMR (Dalla Lana /Thiim/ Pittard) and the Ferrari # 85 of the Iron Dames Frey /Gatting/ Bovy, 0 “4 behind the leaders and behind the 488 of Spirit of Race / AF Corse (# 71 Aubry / Dezoteux /Ragues), the Porsche # 88 of Poordad / Lindsey /Heylen) and the Aston Martin # 777 of D’Station Racing / TF Sport (Fujii / Hoshino /Beech) in a rather short ranking.
In Bold the drivers who set the best time
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