An even hotter day greeted drivers and teams at the Circuit de Catalunya om Saturday morning for the final 90-minute practice session ahead of qualifying later today.
The #28 IDEC Sport ORECA-07 Gibson ended the session fastest again after doing so in Free Practice 1.
Patrick Pilet’s 1:35.780 lap time was slightly slower than what his teammate Paul-Loup Chatin achieved yesterday.
Closely behind the fast Frenchman was Ben Hanley in the #24 Nielsen Racing ORECA who set a time of 1:36.094.
A further three-tenths back was the #22 United Autosports driven by Tom Gamble.
The top 10 finishers in LMP2 were rounded off by just over one-and-a-half seconds around the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona.
The #5 RLR MSport of Michael Jensen set the pace in the LMP3 order in after setting an early benchmark of 1:43.333.
In second place was another Liger JS P320-Nissan of Inter Europol Competition with Mateusz Kaprzyk’s fastest time of 1:43.635.
The #3 United Autosports completed the top-three.
At 37 minutes into the session, the #27 Cool Racing Ligier JS P320-Nissan was stuck into a gravel trap in the hands of Jean-Ludovic Fourbert.
A temporary Full Course Yellow period was deployed to retrieve the LMP3 machine with no major damage done.
Cool Racing’s other competitor in the class, the #17 Ligier JS P320-Nissan, was not planning to run any laps as teams across the paddock set about saving their tyres for the main race.
Finally, in the LM-GTE category, a trio of Ferrari 488 GTE Evos fronted the class.
The #57 Kessel Racing entry set a 1:45.438 in the hands of Peugeot Sport Hypercar driver Mikkel Jensen, whilst Michelle Gatting put the #83 Iron Dames Ferrari three-tenths behind.
Amongst the recently crowned 24 Hours of Spa class-winners, Doriane Pin is set to make her ELMS debut this weekend in all-familiar pink Ferrari machinery.
Davide Rigon put his #60 Iron Lynx third with a 1:45.904.
Rounding out the top five were a pair of Porsche 911 RSR-19s, #18 Absolute Racing ahead of the #93 Proton Competition.
The Aston Martin Vantage AMR GTEs, run by Oman Racing with TF Sport, both ended up further down the field in eighth and ninth.
Qualifying is set to take place later from 15h45.
A trio of 10-minute sessions for each category will determine help the grid positions for tomorrow’s fourth race on the 2022 ELMS schedule.
