Le Mans 24 Hours: Porsche heads second practice from Ferrari
Porsche pipped Ferrari in second free practice for the Le Mans 24 Hours to end the Italian manufacturer’s stranglehold on the top spot in the times.
Laurens Vanthoor went quickest with just over 30 minutes of the two-hour night session remaining on Wednesday aboard his Porsche 963 LMDh to beat Ferrari driver James Calado’s mark by three tenths.
Vanthoor posted a 3m29.157s to go quickest aboard the only one of the three Porsche Penske Motorsport entries not to make it through to the Hypercar qualifying session for the double-points round of the World Endurance Championship.
That put him just seven hundredths up on Calado before he made a further improvement to get down to 3m28.878s.
Calado had been quickest with a 3m29.225s set at the start of the session.
Porsche backed up its upturn in form in the WEC by taking third position courtesy of a 3m29.307s from Dane Cameron.
Cadillac took fourth position, Earl Bamber posting a 3m29.545s to end up seven tenths off the pace aboard the Ganassi team’s full-season WEC entry with the V-Series.R LMDh.
Kamui Kobayashi jumped to fifth place in the best of the Toyota GR010 HYBRIDs right at the end of the session with a 3m29.624s.
#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 - Hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria Lopez
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz
The Jota Porsche customer team managed a series of quick times after failing to complete a flying lap in first qualifying.
Will Stevens made a late improvement on Antonio Felix da Costa’s previous best with a 3m29.784s to propel the car from eighth to sixth.
The Action Express Racing Cadillac team ended up seventh fastest after failing to make it through to Hyperpole, Jack Aitken getting down to a 3m29.846s.
Ferrari’s second 499P was eighth courtesy of a 3m30.086s from Nicklas Nielsen.
The top 10 in the Hypercar class was rounded out by Olivier Pla in the best of the Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 LMHs and Renger van der Zande in the second Ganassi-run Cadillac Racing entry.
Mirko Bortolotti jumped to the top of the order in LMP2 with just minutes left on the clock in his Prema ORECA-Gibson 07.
He posted a 3m36.863s, two tenths up on United Autosports driver Filipe Albuquerque, another late improver with a 3m37.079s.
Albuquerque beat Jota ORECA driver Pietro Fittipaldi, who had been fastest in class for much of the session, into third place.
Kessel Ferrari driver Kei Cozzolino jumped to the top of the order in GTE Am as the chequered flag was shown on the stroke of midnight.
His 3m53.796s aboard the CarGuy-backed Ferrari 488 GTE Evo beat Iron Lynx Porsche driver Alessio Picariello into second by three tenths.
The WEC cars will return to the track for three hours of free practice at 15:00 local time on Thursday, with the half-hour Hyperpole session starting at 20:00.
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