- In 24 Hours of Le Mans Free Practice No. 2 Wednesday evening, Toyota GAZOO Racing's Sebastien Buemi was fastest overall with a lap at 146.916 mph. His lap was .524 seconds faster than the customer AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kubica. Porsche Penske Motorsport's No. 6 for Kevin Estre was third, followed by Hertz Team JOTA's No. 12 for Norman Nato. Signatech Alpine's No. 36 for Nicolas Lapierre was
fifth.
Things were not all great for the No. 12 JOTA Porsche. Right at the end of the session, Callum Ilott crashed the car in the Esses de la Foret, significantly damaging the Porsche 963. The team was forced to go to a backup chassis. As of this writing, the team is still building it up.
In LMP2, COOL Racing's Malthe Jakobsen, who was fastest in class in qualifying practice, topped the chart with a lap at 141.519 mph. The lap was a full 1.165 seconds faster than United Autosports' Oliver Jarvis. Panis Racing's Scott Huffaker was third fastest, then Duqueine Team's James Allen. AF Corse's Ben Barnicoat was fifth.
In the
LMP2 Pro-Am subclass, Huffaker's lap that was good for third of all LMP2 drivers, topped that chart over Allen and Barnicoat. CrowdStrike Racing by APR's Nicky Catsburg was next, then Filipe Albuquerque.
Proton Competition's Dennis Olsen was fastest in LMGT3 in his Ford Mustang GT3 with a lap at 127.703 mph. The lap was .028 seconds faster than the BMW of Team WRT's Augusto Farfus.
Maxime Martin in the second WRT BMW was third, then Iron Lynx's Franck Perera. Inception Racing's Frederik Schandorff was fifth.
The aforementioned Ilott crash caused a red flag that cut the session by about two minutes. Earlier in the session, AO by TF's PJ Hyett lost his right rear wheel at Indianapolis. That caused a slow zone period.
Qualifying practice leader Dries Vanthoor crashed his BMW at Indianapolis. He got loose going through the right turn immediately prior to Indianapolis, then slid off and hit the tire barrier. Dries was able to back out of the tires and drive back to the pits with a damaged nose.
-
In Free Practice No. 3 today, Ferrari AF Corse's No. 50 for Antonio Fuoco was fastest with a lap at 147.051 mph set right at the end of the session. The lap was .108 seconds quicker than Porsche Penske Motorsport's Kevin Estre. Vanthoor was third in his repaired BMW, then Chip Ganassi Racing's Sebastien Bourdais. Toyota GAZOO Racing's Kamui Kobayashi was fifth.
LMP2 was
topped by Panis Racing's Mathias Beche with a lap at 140.326 mph, 23rd overall. Beche's lap was one-eighth of a second faster than COOL Racing's No. 47 for Matt Bell.
In LMGT3, United Autosports' Nicolas Costa was fastest with a lap at 128.311 mph in his McLaren. However, the session did not end well for the team. James Cottingham dropped a wheel onto the dirt, then failed to
compensate for it.
As a result, Cottingham spun at Tertre Rouge and backed his McLaren into the wall. The crash brought out the session's only red flag. Cottingham walked away from the crash, but the McLaren had a decent amount of damage.
Two teams failed to set times in the session. One was Hertz
Team JOTA's No. 12 (see above). The other was Inception Racing's McLaren. A minute or so after Cottingham's crash, Frederik Schandorff pulled over with smoke coming from his McLaren exiting the Mulsanne Corner. He was done for the session after that.
