- Toyota GAZOO Racing's Brendon Hartley was fastest in the opening free practice for the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a lap at 146.726 mph. The lap was .133 seconds faster than teammate Kamui Kobayashi, who as you saw above, made some news of his own this morning. Chip Ganassi Racing's Earl Bamber was third in his Cadillac, then Porsche Penske Motorsport's Felipe Nasr in the No. 75 Porsche. The No. 6 Porsche of Kevin Estre was fifth. The top eight
Hypercars were separated by less than a second over a track length of 8.467 miles.
In LMP2, JOTA Sport's Pietro Fittipaldi backed up his pace from Sunday's Test Day by topping the chart with a lap at 142.051 mph, 16th overall. Fittipaldi's lap was .032 seconds faster
than COOL Racing's Malthe Jakobsen. Prema Racing's Mirko Bortolotti was third, then Signatech Alpine's Matthieu Vaxiviere and Inter Europol Competition's Albert Costa.
Hendrick Motorsports expanded their advantage over the GTE-Am class significantly. Jenson Button turned in a lap at 132.830 mph, 41st overall and more than five seconds faster than the best GTE-Am entry, which was the GMB Motorsport Aston Martin of Marco Sorensen at 129.696 mph.
Sorensen's lap was .310 seconds faster than the Porsche of GR Racing's Riccardo Pera. TF Sport's Valentin Hasse-Clot was third, then Jan Heylen and Alessio Picariello.
There were two red flags during the session. The first one was for a crash exiting the Esses de la Foret when D'Station Racing's Casper Stevenson spun his Aston Martin on his out lap and hit
the barrier. Just as the red flag was displayed, Stevenson was hit by Tower Motorsport's Steven Thomas, who is driving in place of the injured John Farano. That resulted in a 34-minute stoppage. Both Stevenson and Thomas were ok.
The session ended early as a result of Corvette Racing's Nico Varrone crashing his Chevrolet Corvette C8.R at Tertre Rouge. Varrone was
ok.
