Alex Lynn of Cadillac Racing was the fastest driver in the final FIA World Endurance Championship free practice session for the Lone Star Le Mans, the sixth round of 2024.
General Motors took the honours to head both the Hypercar and LMGT3 categories, with a 1-2 in the latter ahead of their home race.
Teams and drivers faced 75% humidity during the 60-minute FP3 session as preparations continued for the all-important qualifying session.
Light spots of rain hit the track after eight minutes of green flag running, prompting the race director to briefly declare the session as wet.
Nevertheless, the Circuit of the Americas remained mostly dry so drivers turned up the pace in comparison to the previous free practice running, demonstrating their immediate priority on fast qualifying laps.
Tyres were under stress with a 35 degree Celsius track temperature, as demonstrated when the front-right of Miguel Molina’s #50 Ferrari AF Corse 499P disbanded pieces of the rubber as he entered the Esses.
This caused the Le Mans winner to utilise the run-off area to take evasive action but not without a close encounter with #94 Peugeot 9X8 driver Stoffel Vandoorne.
A full-course-yellow was initiated because of minor debris on the track near the first safety car line, although it was quickly retrieved before the running resumed.
In the end, just 0.072 seconds narrowly covered the top-five cars in the premier Hypercar category.
Alex Lynn was the fastest driver for the majority of the session having set his 1:51.471 lap time early on in the #2 Cadillac V-Series.R.
At just 0.040 behind the British driver was the #50 Ferrari which completed a quickest lap of 1:51.511, followed by Kamui Kobayashi’s 1:51.533 in the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid.
Fourth position was claimed by the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kubica with a 1:51.534 time at 0.001 of a second behind the Dutchman.
The other Toyota, the #8 GR010 Hybrid, rounded out the top-five cars as Sebastien Buemi put a 1:51.543 on the timesheets.
In LMGT3, 18 cars representing nine manufacturers made their preparations towards qualifying and making it through to their Hyperpole shoot-out.
Proton Competition’s Ben Keating is marking his return to the WEC since being part of the Corvette squad who won the final WEC LMGTE title.
The two-time WEC champion and GTE Am-class Le Mans winner will take on qualifying duties in the #88 Ford Mustang LMGT3 entrant, having tied on three pole positions last year with Iron Dames driver Sarah Bovy – who has two with her name so far in the WEC season.
In the final minutes of the session, Daniel Juncadella put the #82 TF Sport Corvette Z06 GT3.R in P1 with a 2:05.178 lap-time ahead of the sibling Corvette, the #81, in which Charlie Eastwood set the pace at 2:05.351.
Davide Rigon took third in late fashion with a 2:05.542 in the #54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3, ahead of the #59 McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo of Gregoire Saucy who established his fastest time of 2:05.549.
The top-five was rounded out by the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 as team principal Ian James set a quickest time of 2:05.682.
Qualifying is set to commence at 3.00pm local time, or 9.00pm BST/UK.
Discussion about this post