Ferdinand Habsburg set the fastest time for Realteam by WRT during the third FIA World Endurance Championship Prologue session.
The session, which was held under colder conditions compared to the previous day, saw the top three LMP2 runners outpacing the leading Hypercar contender.
Habsburg led the way, posting a best time of 01:48:049 in the #41 Oreca 07 Gibson, ahead of WRT stablemate Rene Rast. The three-time DTM champion was second fastest, 0.283s down. Will Owen took third overall for United Autosports.
Behind the top LMP2 runners, Matthieu Vaxiviere took fourth place overall. The Frenchman reeled off a time of 01:48:707 and became the fastest Hypercar driver in the #36 Alpine A480 Gibson.
Vaxiviere had Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Brendon Hartley behind him as the second-fastest driver in class, but the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid fell behind by LMP2 entries from Team Penske, Prema, Richard Mille Racing Team and United Autosports. Olivier Pla rounded out the top three for the class for Glickenhaus Racing.
The GTE Pro standings was led by Michael Christensen, who set the fastest lap in the #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19 before it suffered a driveshaft failure.
Christensen set his time early in the session before handing over to team-mate Kevin Estre, who subsequently stopped on track. It was the second day in a row the duo suffered mechanical gremlins, with the Dane encountering a throttle sensor issue on Saturday.
The car completed no further running after the failure, but Christensen’s time was enough for the duo to retain their spot at the top of the leaderboards as it was over a second clear of the #64 Corvette C8.R in the hands of Tommy Milner. The second Porsche took third ahead of both AF Corse Ferraris.
Estre’s stoppagge caused the second of four red flags for the first session of the day, with the other ones the result of a stoppage by ARC Bratislava driver Tijmen van der Helm, a crash for Franck Dezoteux’ #71 Spirit of Race Ferrari and a minor spin for Josh Pierson.
In GTE Am, the session was topped by two Porsche drivers who notably set the exact same lap time. Seb Priaulx first posted a 01:57:573 in the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19, with Matteo Cairoli’s #46 Team Project 1 Porsche to match it later on. Since Priaulx set the time first, he ended the session ahead of his Italian counterpart.
