The afternoon session at the Circuit de la Sarthe kicked off at 2 pm on a wet track. As the pit exit light went to green there was hardly any activity and only a handful of cars took to the track straight away. But soon conditions started to improve and the lap times quickly.
Audi Sport Team Joest drivers Marcel Fässler and Oliver Jarvis kept improving each others lap time at the front. Fässler put in a 3:48.232, Jarvis tried to beat it once more but despite setting fastest sector times in sectors 2 and 3 he was unable beat Fässlers time.
Tracy Krohn then went off at the Mulsanne Corner, damaging his Ferrari and allowing race control to deploy the safety car. The safety car stayed out for several laps and when it came back in the first car on the pace was the #2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro, back on track after its first session mishap. Soon it was an Audi top three again.
With 2 hours and 27 minutes remaining Neel Jani briefly put the Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota ahead of the two works Toyota’s, but with the track conditions improving he was soon pushed down again when Nicolas Lapierre bettered his personal best.
From that moment on first place changed several times. First it was Marcel Fässler going quicker than the best time in the morning session after setting a 3:46.044. Eight minutes later Tom Kristensen went almost three seconds quicker, but then Toyota power kicked in.
Neel Jani was the first into the 3:42s and right before the end of the second hou rit was Nicolas Lapierre on an absolute flyer. He finished his lap in 3:37.698, five seconds quicker than Jani. Kristensen, Lapierre and Gené had all pitted at the end of their lap.
In LMP2 the development of lap times was similar. Ricardo Gonzalez was the first driver to put in a ‘decent’ lap time and he remained on top fors ome 15 minutes, before his time was improved by Signatech Alpine driver Tristan Gommendy. Gommendy improved his lap time – and included a sector 1 time that was faster than the LMP1 cars at that moment. But then the safety car came out due to Tracy Krohn’s off at Mulsanne.
But with 2 hours and 15 minutes remaining the Alpine’s time was beaten by Pierre Kaffer and Oliver Turvey. On the drying track the fastest time in LMP2 was improved lap after lap. After Turvey it was Kaffer, then Mike Conway, then Pierre Thiriet, before Turvey moved back to the top of the LMP2 timing screens at the halfway point.
Like the other classes the track conditions improving meant the fastest GTE driver on track kept changing. Marc Lieb (#92 Porsche) and Jordan Taylor (#73 Corvette) were the first to go top, before Timo Bernhard went quickest. Eight minutes later Taylor went fastest again, but then the Porsche vs Corvette battle was interrupted by Ferrari and Aston Martin.
Malucelli (#51 Ferrari) went fastest half an hour into the session, before Rob Bell went 2.5 seconds quicker a minute later. Partly due to the safety car Bell remained on top for nearly an hour, before his time was improved by Patrick Pilet and then a couple of minutes later by Stefan Mücke.
Patrick Pilet and Giancarlo Fisichella were up next to set the class best times, before Wolf Henzler put in a 4:14.006, setting the fastest time of all GTE cars.
No rain, improving track conditions… what would the final two hours bring?
