The #51 Ferrari 499P finished first overall in the final practice session prior to the Le Mans centenary race on Saturday with a time of 3:27.275 set by James Calado.
The hour-long night time session gave teams one last chance to prep ahead of Saturday’s warm up and saw a major interruption when just over half way through the session, a yellow flag controlled slow zone was implemented on the Mulsanne straight across the two chicanes as the #93 Peugeot 9X8 came to a half with Jean-Eric Vergne at the wheel.
The incident later triggered a red flag with 22 minutes of the session remaining with the clock continuing to wind down. The session went back to green with approximately six minutes remaining, but race director Eduardo Freitas extended the session by a further 15 minutes.
Second overall behind the #51 Ferrari 499P was the #709 Glickenhaus 007, with driver Esteban Gutierrez beating the team’s qualifying run with a time of 3:28.278. In third was the #38 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963 thanks to Will Stevens’ lap time of 3:28.440. Following Stevens’ time in the session was Kevin Estre in the #6 Team Penske Porsche 963 with a time of 3:28.457.
The #311 Cadillac V-Series.R was fifth with a time of 3:28.603 set by Alexander Sims, ahead of the sixth placed #7 Toyota GR010 – Hybrid of Jose Maria Lopez, who punched in a time of 3:28.923. Closing out the top seven overall was the pole sitter Anotnio Fuoco in the #50 Ferrari 499P. The Italian posted a time of 3:28.935 at the very end of the session.
1st in LMP2 went to the pro/am #923 Oreca 07 – Gibson of Racing Team Turkey, thanks to Dries Vanthoor’s lap time of 3:36.229. Second place went to Panis Racing’s Jan Van Uitert, who set a time of 3:36.650 in the #65 Oreca 07 – Gibson. The top three in LMP2 was completed by Mirko Bortolotti in the #63 Prema Racing outfit with a time of 3:36.904.
Runner up of the LMP2 pro/am entries was Ben Barnicoat in the #80 AF Corse Oreca 07 – Gibson with a time of 3:37.126. The third placed pro/am LMP2 driver was Maithe Jakobsen. He set a time of 3:38.241.
In GTE-Am, the #66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari 488 GTE Evo went fastest with Thomas Neubauer’s time of 3:52.965. Second was Scott Huffaker in the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE Evo who set a time of 3:53.069. 0.351 back from the lead GTE car was Alessio Picariello in the #60 Iron Lynx Porsche 911 RSR – 19 with a time of 3:53.316. Crucially, the #777 D’Station Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR was able to get on track for the first time since the crash that wrote off their first chassis in free practice 1.
Jenson Button once again set the fastest time in the #24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. The Garage 56 driver set a time of 3:51.903.
The drivers get a day of rest Friday, before warm-up on Saturday at 12 pm local time. Then at 4 pm local time, the 91st running of the Le Mans 24 hours gets underway.
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