It was a Porsche 1,2 again in the final 60 minutes of Free Practice before the clocks start running for this afternoon’s qualifying session.
Brendon Hartley was on the pace early in the session in the #17 and popped in a 1:46.435, good enough to stay at the top throughout with the sister Porsche three tenths back.
In LMP1 Privateer the #12 Rebellion was a latecomer to the session but eventually topped the times, initially with Nick Heidfeld, then Mathias Beche doing the honours, 1:53.115 from the Swiss on his final lap of the session.
An early session 1:56.178 saw the #36 Signatech Alpine top the LMP2 times with Nico Lapierre popping in a late session effort to sit second in the #47 KCMG Oreca Nissan, Oli Webb third in the #43 SARD Morand Morgan.
Neither ESM nor G-Drive Ligiers troubled the top three but the most dramatic reason why came from the #26 G-Drive car, a misunderstanding between Roman Rusinov and Patrick Dempsey in the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche saw the P2 car launch over the kerb at T10 and then hit the Porsche with a double impact, damage to the front right of the #26, left rear of the 911 RSR, the resulting debris and reported fluid loss brought out an 8 minute red flag, the Ligier back on track within around 20 minutes, the Porsche though sitting out the remainder of the session as the team set to work on the damage.
One Porsche not in trouble though was the #92 factory 911 RSR, Fred Makowiecki topping the times in the session with another early effort , 2:05.134 a much quicker time than we saw yesterday with the top four all in the 2:05s in the order #92, 51, 91, 99, all three marques very close.
In GTE Am it was Pedro Lamy who set the mark, a mid session 2:06.639 giving the #98 Aston Martin just over a tenth of a second advantage over the late session push from Paulo Ruberti in the #50 Larbre Corvette, Andrea Bertolini having led the was in earlier running in the eventually third fastest in class #72 SMP Ferrari.
