Cadillac Racing’s Alex Lynn set the quickest lap time during the third and final practice session for the FIA World Endurance Championship season-opener in Qatar.
Unlike all of the Prologue and free practice running so far, teams began to turn up the heat in preparation for qualifying.
With tyre management expected to be a key factor during the 1812 km race on Saturday 2 March, longer stint runs have been conducted so far in order to gauge realistic race pace so far.
Crucially, this 60-minute session proceeded qualifying in which the Hyperpole format will be adopted for the first time outside the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Essentially, the Hypercar and LMGT3 teams will have to finish in the top-10 order of their class so that they can continue to their top-10 shootouts. In FP3, teams started to carry out ‘qualifying simulations’ in preparation.
Porsche Hypercar machinery continued to assert their form from the previous free practice running.
Porsche Penske’s Matt Campbell – who already led FP1 – set the pace during the early stages of the session with the only time in the 1-minute and 40-second margin, before #2 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R driver Alex Lynn leapfrogged the Australian’s time.
The cooler conditions meant none other than those two drivers entered the margin, although qualifying preparations were still on the minds of all teams.
Lynn set the fastest time in the Hypercar class with a 1:40.667, as Campbell put the #5 Porsche 963 in second with a 1:40.847.
The #12 JOTA 963 trailed in third place after Callum Ilott completed a 1:41.121, with Laurens Vanthoor in fourth after he set a 1:41.156 in the #6 Porsche 963.
Fifth place was occupied by the #94 Peugeot 9X8 after Stoffel Vandoorne put a fastest time of 1:41.176.
AF Corse asserted their ground so far in free practice, and it was their #54 Ferrari 296 which led the early portion of FP3 owing to Davide Rigon’s efforts.
James Cottingham lost the rear end of his #59 McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo at Turn 5, thus he put himself into the gravel trap at 14 minutes into the session.
A red flag was declared in order to retrieve the stricken United Autosports car.
Amidst the common names at the top of the class, Iron Lynx’s #60 Lamborghini Huracan appeared in the top-five running early on with Franck Perera fronting the potential to see the Bologna manufacturer compete for Hyperpole.
Alex Riberas in the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin AMR Vantage set the fastest lap time, a 1:54.964 from the extensive 20 laps he completed behind the wheel.
Second place was narrowly taken by Rigon and his 1:55.017 lap time, as the sibling #55 296 trailed in third with thanks to his 1:55.204 time.
Perera’s 1:55.260 put the #60 in fourth, as Marco Sorensen rounded off the top-five for D’station Racing with a 1:55.346.
Qualifying is expected to take place later on from 1pm GMT or 4pm local time, and will be split into four sessions including the two Hyperpole sessions for each category.
