It was a Porsche Penske 1-2 both in the afternoon session, and in the overall times to round out the Test Day at Le Mans, with Kevin Estre in the #6 leading Felipe Nasr in the #4 Penske Porsche 963’s at the end of the day. Estre set his lap early in the session, dropping the marker down to a 3:26.907, to be the fastest time of the day.
Rounding out the top 5 were Toyota with the #8 GR010 thanks to Brendon Hartley, the third Penske Porsche 963 with Frederic Makoweicki, and the #50 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Nicklas Nielsen.
All five times were quicker than the best set in the morning session.
In LMP2 it was Oliver Jarvis who gapped the field by over a second in the #22 United Autosports Oreca 07, setting a3:34.704 within the first 15 minutes of the session.
The closest challenger was the #25 Algarve Pro Racing car; Olli Caldwell setting a 3:35.981, then James Allen in the #30 Duqueine Team car, in third, and topping Pro-Am.
We saw the first sub-4 minute laps in LMGT3, thanks to the #27 Heart Of Racing Aston Martin at the hands of Alex Riberas, who set a 3:59.920 on the first flying lap.
His lap was almost equalled by Sean Gelael in the #31 WRT BMW, who missed out by just two thousandths, but then WAS equalled by August Farfus, in the same BMW!.
The time was though then bettered by Sebastian Baud, who topped the session with a 3:59.883 in the #82 TF Sport Corvette.
Of note, most cars logged significant laps, with the most laps done by the #20 WRT BMW, which clocked up 40 laps. Of the morning’s issues, the #37 Cool Racing Oreca managed to get the car back out on track, and they tallied 25 laps, while the #15 WRT BMW Hypercar, that completed a full engine change after their issue in Session 1, was back out on track with an hour remaining, and managed to get 11 laps completed.
Of the other runners, the lowest number of laps was by the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963, who only elected to do 12 laps, and only 20 laps with the #88 Ford Mustang. When DSC checked in with the team, a very cool and relaxed Christian Ried reported no particular problem behind the lack of running fr the #99.
The session wasn’t without incident, unfortunately. The first interruption was to recover the #10 Vector Sport Oreca, who was seen on the CCTV parked up on the entry of Indianapolis, on driver’s right, which brought out a red flag. Curiously, the Vector Sport car had damage on the front left of the car and the floor, which didn’t match it’s resting point on the inside of the circuit. It’s another rough blow to the team who have suffered a difficult week, after an accident in testing at Spa last week wrote off a chassis, requiring a full rebuild of a new car in the week leading into Le Mans. They were only able to complete 9 laps in the session, which was the least of any car.
During the red flag, the #19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini was noted as ‘stopped’ on the live timing tracker, in the section of the track just after the recovery for the #10 Vector Sport car. A message indicating that Matteo Cairoli in the #19 was under investigation for ‘Behaviour under the red flag at MP 27’ [Arnage exit] flashed on the timing screen, but at this point, no result of that investigation has been given.
The red flag lasted 14 minutes, being removed with 2 hours left, and the session ran almost fully green until the call for a Slow Zone, then a Safety Car with 36 minutes remaining.
It was another incident at Indianapolis the cause, this time due to PJ Hyett in the #14 AO Racing by TF Oreca. Hyett telling DSC that it happened whilst he was trying to pass GT traffic, with ‘Spike’ making contact with the wall, suffering principally bodywork damage at the front right corner.
Like the morning running, the session ended marginally early under red flag after a late incident for the #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010, with Kamui Kobayashi running wide at Indianapolis and nosing into the barriers with only 7 minutes left. While the damage looked cosmetic, the need for recovery brought an early end to the session.
It was unfortunate timing, as the timing screens were beginning to light up with personal bests and session bests in the late running. Felipe Nasr in the #4 Porsche Penske 963 improved on his last lap, but not enough to catch the team car, while Sebastian Buemi was 2 tenths up on the best time on his penultimate lap in the #8 Toyota GR010, but was slowed by traffic in the last sector.
The cars will next hit the track on Wednesday afternoon at 14:00, for a 3 hour practice session ahead of qualifying in the evening.
