WEC | Sao Paulo, Free Practice 3: Porsche hat trick ahead of Alpine and BMW

There are three Porsches leading the overall standings when the checkered flag waves on Free Practice 3 of the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, with the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship protagonists finding cloudy skies and cool temperatures of around 15°C on the Interlagos track this morning for this final outing before qualifying this afternoon.

The only thrill during the 60 minutes of action on the track came from Carl Bennett at Turn 8 ‘Esse’, whose Isotta Fraschini was sent into a spin by the Alpine #36 of Matthieu Vaxivière who was trying to get inside the Tipo 6-C.

For the rest, only a few drops of harmless rain and a Full Course Yellow test carried out after about twenty minutes, then the green light was given to continue the work, testing both fast laps and sequential laps for race pace.

The HYPERCAR class is still very close with 12 cars within 1″1, led by the #12 Jota 963 that Callum Ilott put ahead of the two official Team Penske cars in 1’24″297 by 0″012 and 0″093.

Good fourth time for the Alpine #35, followed by the BMW #15, both 0″3 from the top and with the Lamborghini #63 and the Porsche-Jota #38 behind them, which closes a ranking with 7 LMDh ahead.

The best Hypercars are the AF Corse Ferraris #50 and #83, which are positioned in eighth and ninth place, 0.6″ behind the top, while the Peugeot #93 closes the Top 10, outside of which remain the Toyotas, in 13th and 14th place, followed by the Cadillac #2 and the Ferrari #51.

#92 Manthey Purerxcing Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3: Aliaksandr Malykhin, Joel Sturm, Klaus Bachler

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Even in the LMGT3 class, everyone is very close and the fastest is Alex Malykhin in 1’35″488 at the wheel of the #92 Porsche of Manthey PureRxcing, preceding the #95 McLaren of United Autosports by just 0″062.

Third and very close to the first two is the Lamborghini #85 of the Iron Dames, in the top 5 we also find the other McLaren-United and the Corvette #82 of TF Sport, which is behind the Ferrari #54 of AF Corse, both 0″3 off the lead.

All 0.6 seconds apart and divided by a matter of thousandths, the cars behind the silver 296 complete the Top 10, starting with the #27 Aston Martin of Heart of Racing, which is ahead of the #91 Porsche of Manthey EMA and the #777 Vantage of D’Station Racing.

The top ten was completed by the #88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang, followed by the #55 AF Corse Ferrari and the #87 Akkodis-ASP Lexus.

The 17 are within 1.1 seconds of each other and the #46 and #31 Team WRT BMWs are in the last positions, separated only by the #77 Proton Mustang. Valentino Rossi in his M4 completed 8 laps.

Qualifying and the assault on the Hyperpole are scheduled to start at 19:30 Italian time.