New Zealander Brendon Hartley topped the fourth and final practice session for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, setting a 3:29.451 at the wheel of the #8 Toyota GR010 – Hybrid in a session affected by rain.
A one-hour nighttime practice session gave the field a final chance to prepare under the cover of darkness ahead of lights out on Saturday.
The rain that many feared would intervene with Hyperpole came into play at the start of FP4, and added an extra facet for drivers to contend with amid changeable conditions.
As the session continued the rain steadily increased and with it the associated risk.
The rain increased enough to warrant wet tyre running for Robin Frijns and Matt Campbell in the final minutes of the session as other drivers had to either contend with the rear stepping out or escaping to the pit lane.
With the majority of the field retreating to the pits in the final few minutes, the timesheets were in no jeopardy of changing and Hartley’s time remained unchallenged.
Whilst some retreated to the pits, the likes of the pole-sitting #6 Porsche 963 car headed out for the first time in the session to get some exploratory wet weather running, meanwhile the #2 Cadillac V-Series.R didn’t set a time at all.
The #12 JOTA Porsche also didn’t complete any running with repairs ongoing following Callum Ilott’s crash on Wednesday night.
Behind Hartley’s top time was Miguel Molina in the #50 Ferrari 499P courtesy of a 3:29.527 lap time with Sheldon van der Linder third in the #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 (3:29.560).
Fourth went to Mikkel Jensen in the #93 Peugeot 9X8 (3:29.596) and Dries Vanthoor, who suffered an off in Hyperpole, rounded out the top five in the #15 BMW (3:29.640).
Alpine continued to feature high in the order with Charles Milesi posting the sixth fastest time of the session (3:29.745) in the #35 Alpine A424 with Pipo Derani seventh in the #311 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R (3:29.789).
Completing the top-10 were Mathieu Jaminet in the #4 Porsche 963 (3:29.866), Nicolas Lapierre in the #36 Alpine (3:30.071) and Jose Maria Lopez in the #7 Toyota GR010 – Hybrid (3:30.184).
In LMP2 the spoils went to Ben Hanley in the pro/am #23 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson.
Hanley’s time of 3:37.121 bettered Fabio Scherer – piloting the #24 Nielsen Racing entry – by 0.295 seconds.
Third went to Nolan Siegel in the #22 United Autosports car with the young American 0.752 seconds back from Hanley’s class-topping time.
Esteban Masson topped the LMGT3 timesheet with a 3:58.755 laptime aboard the #87 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F LMGT3 machine.
There were three different manufacturers represented in the top three, with Marino Sato second in the #95 United Autosports McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo (3:59.099) and Ben Barker third in the #77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang LMGT3 (3:59.323).
