Filipe Albuquerque led an Acura 1-2 finish in night practice for the 26th annual Motul Petit Le Mans.
Albuquerque took the #10 WTR Andretti Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06 to the top of the leaderboard at the very end of tonight’s 90-minute session with a best lap of 1:11.296.
That was good enough to lead the session by just three milliseconds over the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Tom Blomqvist, who finished second-fastest ahead of his and the team’s last IMSA races for the foreseeable future.
Matt Campbell was third-fastest in the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963, ahead of Jack Aitken in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R in fourth.
Fastest of the two BMW Team RLL cars was the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Nick Yelloly, eight-tenths back of the top spot in seventh.
Mikkel Jensen picked up where Scott Huffaker left off earlier in the afternoon, leading LMP2 in the #11 TDS Racing Oreca LMP2 07 with a best lap of 1:12.883 – the best time in the class thus far.
TDS Racing’s #35 Oreca also returned to action after Giedo van der Garde’s crash in Practice 2. Josh Pierson set the car’s best time, good enough for sixth in class.
Second in LMP2 was Paul-Loup Chatin in the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca, followed by Christian Rasmussen in the #18 Era Motorsport Oreca.
The #17 AWA Duquiene D08 finished atop the timesheets in LMP3 for the first time tonight, with Nico Varrone setting a 1:16.846 to lead the way.
Gabby Chaves was second-fastest in the #36 Andretti Autosport Ligier JS P320, with Garett Grist third in the #30 Jr III Racing Ligier.
In the GTD Pro and GTD classes, the #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 set the pace in GTD Pro, as Mirko Bortolotti set a top time of 1:19.803 to lead the class by nearly four-tenths of a second.
Jules Gounon was second-fastest in the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, taking part in its final weekend.
GTD Pro champion-elect Jack Hawksworth rounded out the top three in the class in his #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3.
Over in GTD ‘classic’, Bill Auberlen continued his strong form aboard the #97 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 and set the fastest time in class, and second best of all GTD cars. His best time was a 1:19.898.
Julien Andlauer was second in the #92 KellyMoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3 R, followed by Jan Heylen in the #16 Wright Motorsport Porsche.
Images © Martin W. Spetz / Dailysportscar
