With qualifying following the first Free Practice session, the challenge for teams was to find enough qualifying pace from 3-hours of hopefully trouble-free running. With light rain preceding the session slick tyres soon cleared any remaining traces of water although the track was declared wet. The field had mostly clean running, a full course yellow given once, early in the final hour after a cluster of unrelated prototype issues.
Pipo Derani had a “really scary” moment steering the #708 Glickenhaus out of the Porsche Curves on an early installation lap: nothing to do with surface conditions, suspension issues repaired to enable the car’s return to the session. Glickenhaus set the early pace though, Franck Mailleux’s improvement to 3:29.917 the first sub 3:30 lap, bettering Toyota’s best overall Test Day time. Derani slotted in behind, three tenths quicker than the Toyota GR010 Hybrid pairing.
Alpine Elf Team’s A480-Gibson sat a couple of seconds shy at 3:32.075, the #36 car’s times bettered by the leading LMP2 pair. The car was seen returning to its pit slowly and off-track as one of the issues that brought the FCY.
As more urgency followed the caution period, Brendan Hartley improved the Hypercar times to go quickest, 3:29.441 gaining nearly half a second over the Glickenhaus 007 LMH’s earlier best.
LMP2 provided the most incidents of the 3-hour session, beginning with Matthieu Lahaye’s #35 Ultimate Oreca limping back to its pit missing a rear wing, barrier contact suspected, and its rear deck replaced. Perhaps there had indeed been more dampness than teams had anticipated.
Cars running with less aero and more of a fuel handicap this year, the best of the 26-car Oreca 07 festival early on was nevertheless impressive, Alex Lynn hustling the Sebring winning #23 United Autosports car around in 3:31.563, three tenths ahead of Prema Orlen Team’s best effort from Robert Kubica. Norman Nato’s early marker of 3:32.183 would hold Realteam by WRT in third until a late lap from Antonio Felix De Costa’s, 3:32.675 would bump the #38 car up to second. Lynn would improve his best time to 3:30.238 late on for United Autosports, splitting the Hypercars and to go fourth overall.
A spate of incidents on track in the last hour brought out the safety car, two involving LMP2 cars: Ryan Cullen found the limit at the Forest Esses in the #10 Vector Sport Oreca, while Rolf Ineichen’s prototype debut resulted in an off-track excursion at the Daytona chicane that would cause a long-standing caution for the second half of the Mulsanne section.
Rodrigo Sales dropped the #24 Nielsen Racing Oreca-Gibson into the gravel at the Dunlop Chicane, before Steven Thomas’s #45 Algarve Pro car impacted the left hand barrier hard at the entry to the Ford Chicane in the closing minutes, effectively ending the session.
GTE-Pro
Corvette Racing led the pace early on despite a couple of punctures, a second between the #64 C8.R on a 3:53.360 set by Tommy Milner and the shadowing #63 car. But the positions would be reversed as Antonio Garcia’s 3:53.250 placed the #63 Corvette at the top of the GTE-Pro screen late in the session to maintain the 1-2.
Shane van Gisbergen’s 3:54.601 had the Riley Motorsports Ferrari in third in the first hour, ahead of the Porsche Team pairing, before the 911 RSR-19s made their way into the 3:54s to displace the #74 car’s time, Gianmaria Bruni’s #91 3:54.081 half a second ahead of Christensen’s best for the #92 car.
AF Corse were a late arrival, holding back for 30 minutes until releasing its #52 car, a 3:54.543 its best lap. Next door, the #51 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo was the only entry overall still sitting in its garage, the car in pieces for most of the session before James Calado did a couple of out/in laps with sector times shadowing those of the third and fourth placed Porsches, the #51 having had an engine change.
GTE-Am
Fred Poordad’s #88 Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche went deep into the gravel at the entry to the Porsche Curves, bringing out the first slow zone to interrupt the pace of the early running. This was headed by Julian Andlauer’s Weathertec Porsche, a 3:55.082 the early GTE-Am benchmark that would stick to the end. A few splitter changes and other set-up improvements had paid off so far.
Warnings for track limit infringements were particularly evident in the GTE-Am class, but Marco Sorensen’s 3:55.997 for TF Sport headed a strong start from all three Aston Martin entries until Ben Barker’s 3:55.941 tucked the GR Racing Porsche in behind Andlauer’s time to finish the session second quickest.
Aston Martins would finish the session 3rd, 4th and 5th, TF Sport heading Northwest AMR and D’Station Racing.
