Le Mans 24 Hours: Toyota grabs practice top spot from SMP
The #7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi struck late to set the pace in practice for the Le Mans 24 Hours
Kobayashi hit the front with less than two minutes of the four-hour session remaining, clocking a 3m18.091s aboard the TS050 HYBRID he shares with Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez to deny the #11 SMP Racing car top spot.
But the session was a scruffy one for the #7 crew, with Kobayashi going off at Mulsanne corner while light rain fell, and Lopez having a moment on the approach to the pitlane then later going through the runoff area at the Dunlop chicane.
Stoffel Vandoorne had put SMP's #11 BR Engineering-AER BR1 top with half an hour remaining, but his time ended up 1.840 seconds shy of Kobayashi's on a rapidly drying track.
Ex-McLaren Formula 1 driver Vandoorne's 3m19.931s time was a mere 0.029s faster than that set by Gustavo Menezes, whose 3m19.960s lap in the Rebellion-Gibson R-13 he shares with Thomas Laurent and Nathanael Berthon had stood as the benchmark for much of the session.
Menezes posted that effort moments before a red flag was shown when GTE Am driver Tracy Krohn crashed the #99 Porsche 911 RSR an hour and 40 minutes into the four-hour session.
Krohn had a hefty shunt on the run between the second chicane and Mulsanne corner, leaving a significant amount of debris across the track.
It took around an hour for the Porsche to be recovered to the pits, while the clean-up process delayed running by the best part of 45 minutes.
An update from the World Endurance Championship via Twitter said Krohn had been taken to hospital for precautionary checks but that he was "conscious and in good spirits".
The length of the delay allowed a heavy rain shower to hit the circuit before the session restarted, which appeared to have made the likelihood of any drivers improving slim.
But the sun broke through the clouds in the final hour of session and helped dry the track to the point where slicks tyres were a viable tyre choice once more.
The second Toyota ended the session fourth thanks to a 3m20.941s lap set by Fernando Alonso, who was the first driver from the #8 car's line-up to take to the track.
Kazuki Nakajima looked on course to improve on that time with his final lap, but his effort was thwarted by a yellow flag being shown in the final sector caused by Erwin Creed's spinning #50 Larbre Competition Ligier.
The #1 Rebellion was fifth, 3.166s off the pace, ahead of the #17 SMP car.
DragonSpeed's BRE-Gibson BR1 and the solo ByKolles ENSO CLM-Gibson P1/01 brought up the rear of the LMP1 order, lapping 6.355s and 9.752s off the pace respectively.
LMP2
IDEC Sport set the fastest time in the LMP2 class, as Paul-Loup Chatin's late effort in the #28 ORECA usurped Pastor Maldonado's earlier benchmark.
Jonathan Hirschi had been the first driver to break under the 3m30s bracket in the #39 Graff ORECA, but as track conditions improved, his time was subsequently beaten by Maldonado's #31 DragonSpeed ORECA and the #26 G-Drive Racing ORECA of Jean-Eric Vergne.
Following the rain shower, it took until the final 15 minutes for anyone to challenge Maldonado's time, but 2018 polesitter Chatin's 3m28.363s was enough to pip the one-time Formula 1 grand prix winner by 0.367s.
Pierre Thiriet was another late mover in the #36 Signatech-Alpine, bumping Nyck de Vries in the best non-ORECA - the #29 Racing Team Nederland Dallara - down to sixth in class.
The car had a few spins in the hands of team owner Frits van Eerd, including a worrying moment on the exit of the first chicane, but crucially managed not to sustain any damage.
The best-placed Ligier ended the session in seventh, as Filipe Albuquerque moved the #22 United Autosports example up the order in the dying moments after a spell in the garage having an engine oil pump replaced.
GTE
Porsche took a one-two in the GTE Pro division, with Michael Christensen's early lap of 3m52.149s in the #92 911 RSR surviving a late flurry of improvements on the drying track to stand as the top time of the session.
Mathieu Jaminet made a late jump up the order in the #94 Porsche, 0.315s off the pace of Christensen, while Sam Bird was third-fastest in the best of the Ferrari 488 GTEs, the #71 machine.
Stefan Mucke was the quickest of the Fords in fourth, having briefly gone second in the black-and-white retro-liveried #66 GT, ahead of James Calado in the second of the factory AF Corse-run Ferraris and Augusto Farfus in the top BMW M8 GTE.
The late improvements shuffled down the #67 Ford, which had been second at the red flag, all the way down to seventh, ahead of the remaining two Porsches and the top Corvette C7.R.
Aston Martin's top Vantage GTE was 11th.
In GTE Am, the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche of Julien Andlauer led the way on a 3m55.304s.
That was enough to beat the #54 Spirit of Race Ferrari of Giancarlo Fisichella by 0.382s, while Pedro Lamy was only another 0.028s behind in the #98 Aston Martin.
Practice times
Pos | Class | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | LMP1 | M.Conway, K.Kobayashi, J.M.Lopez | Toyota Gazoo Racing | Toyota | 3m18.091s | - | 48 |
2 | LMP1 | V.Petrov, M.Aleshin, S.Vandoorne | SMP Racing | BR Engineering/AER | 3m19.931s | 1.840s | 30 |
3 | LMP1 | T.Laurent, N.Berthon, G.Menezes | Rebellion Racing | Rebellion/Gibson | 3m19.960s | 1.869s | 34 |
4 | LMP1 | S.Buemi, K.Nakajima, F.Alonso | Toyota Gazoo Racing | Toyota | 3m20.941s | 2.850s | 47 |
5 | LMP1 | N.Jani, A.Lotterer, B.Senna | Rebellion Racing | Rebellion/Gibson | 3m21.257s | 3.166s | 30 |
6 | LMP1 | S.Sarrazin, E.Orudzhev, S.Sirotkin | SMP Racing | BR Engineering/AER | 3m22.431s | 4.340s | 31 |
7 | LMP1 | H.Hedman, B.Hanley, R.van der Zande | DragonSpeed | BR Engineering/Gibson | 3m24.446s | 6.355s | 15 |
8 | LMP1 | T.Dillmann, O.Webb, P.Ruberti | ByKOLLES Racing Team | ENSO CLM/Nissan | 3m27.843s | 9.752s | 32 |
9 | LMP2 | P.Lafargue, P-L.Chatin, M.Rojas | Idec Sport Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m28.363s | 10.272s | 28 |
10 | LMP2 | R.Gonzalez, P.Maldonado, A.Davidson | DragonSpeed | ORECA/Gibson | 3m28.730s | 10.639s | 13 |
11 | LMP2 | R.Rusinov, J.van Uitert, J-E.Vergne | G-Drive Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m28.893s | 10.802s | 25 |
12 | LMP2 | T.Gommendy, V.Capillaire, J.Hirschi | Graff | ORECA/Gibson | 3m28.959s | 10.868s | 19 |
13 | LMP2 | N.Lapierre, A.Negrao, P.Thiriet | Signatech Alpine Matmut | Alpine/Gibson | 3m29.978s | 11.887s | 22 |
14 | LMP2 | F.van Eerd, G.van der Garde, N.de Vries | Racing Team Nederland | Dallara/Gibson | 3m30.611s | 12.520s | 30 |
15 | LMP2 | P.Hanson, F.Albuquerque, P.Di Resta | United Autosports | Ligier/Gibson | 3m30.862s | 12.771s | 26 |
16 | LMP2 | H-Pin Tung, S.Richelmi, G.Aubry | Jackie Chan DC Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m30.893s | 12.802s | 29 |
17 | LMP2 | R.Cullen, A.Brundle, W.Owen | United Autosports | Ligier/Gibson | 3m31.299s | 13.208s | 34 |
18 | LMP2 | D.H.Hansson, J.King, R.Taylor | Jackie Chan DC Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m31.416s | 13.325s | 35 |
19 | LMP2 | N.Jamin, P.Ragues, R.Dumas | Duqueine Engineering | ORECA/Gibson | 3m31.416s | 13.325s | 33 |
20 | LMP2 | R.Binder, J.Canal, W.Stevens | Panis Barthez Competition | Ligier/Gibson | 3m31.951s | 13.860s | 27 |
21 | LMP2 | D.Zollinger, A.Pizzitola, J.Falb | Algarve Pro Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m32.138s | 14.047s | 26 |
22 | LMP2 | A.Fjordbach, D.Andersen, M.Beche | High Class Racing | Ligier/Gibson | 3m32.353s | 14.262s | 30 |
23 | LMP2 | R.Lacorte, G.Sernagiotto, A.Belicchi | Cetilar Villorba Corse | Dallara/Gibson | 3m33.009s | 14.918s | 20 |
24 | LMP2 | F.Perrodo, M.Vaxiviere, L.Duval | TDS Racing | ORECA/Gibson | 3m34.483s | 16.392s | 18 |
25 | LMP2 | J.Farano, A.Maini, N.Nato | RLR M Sport/Tower Events | ORECA/Gibson | 3m34.823s | 16.732s | 23 |
26 | LMP2 | J.Smiechowski, J.Winslow, N.Moore | Inter Europol Competition | Ligier/Gibson | 3m36.237s | 18.146s | 16 |
27 | LMP2 | M.Konopka, H.Enqvist, K.Tereschenko | ARC Bratislava | Ligier/Gibson | 3m36.241s | 18.150s | 35 |
28 | LMP2 | E.Creed, R.Ricci, N.Boulle | Larbre Competition | Ligier/Gibson | 3m38.171s | 20.080s | 27 |
29 | GTE Pro | M.Christensen, K.Estre, L.Vanthoor | Porsche GT Team | Porsche | 3m52.149s | 34.058s | 20 |
30 | GTE Pro | S.Muller, M.Jaminet, D.Olsen | Porsche GT Team | Porsche | 3m52.464s | 34.373s | 21 |
31 | GTE Pro | D.Rigon, S.Bird, M.Molina | AF Corse | Ferrari | 3m52.743s | 34.652s | 25 |
32 | GTE Pro | S.Mucke, O.Pla, B.Johnson | Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK | Ford | 3m52.778s | 34.687s | 19 |
33 | GTE Pro | A.P.Guidi, J.Calado, D.Serra | AF Corse | Ferrari | 3m52.844s | 34.753s | 20 |
34 | GTE Pro | A.Farfus, A.F.da Costa, J.Krohn | BMW Team MTEK | BMW | 3m52.969s | 34.878s | 30 |
35 | GTE Pro | A.Priaulx, H.Tincknell, J.Bomarito | Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK | Ford | 3m53.027s | 34.936s | 17 |
36 | GTE Pro | P.Pilet, E.Bamber, N.Tandy | Porsche GT Team | Porsche | 3m53.157s | 35.066s | 22 |
37 | GTE Pro | R.Lietz, G.Bruni, F.Makowiecki | Porsche GT Team | Porsche | 3m53.182s | 35.091s | 25 |
38 | GTE Pro | J.Magnussen, A.Garcia, M.Rockenfeller | Corvette Racing | Chevrolet | 3m53.343s | 35.252s | 33 |
39 | GTE Pro | M.Martin, A.Lynn, J.Adam | Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin | 3m53.802s | 35.711s | 29 |
40 | GTE Pro | N.Thiim, M.Sorensen, D.Turner | Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin | 3m53.904s | 35.813s | 29 |
41 | GTE Pro | J.Hand, D.Muller, S.Bourdais | Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA | Ford | 3m54.055s | 35.964s | 17 |
42 | GTE Pro | R.Briscoe, R.Westbrook, S.Dixon | Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA | Ford | 3m54.189s | 36.098s | 22 |
43 | GTE Pro | O.Gavin, T.Milner, M.Fassler | Corvette Racing | Chevrolet | 3m54.198s | 36.107s | 31 |
44 | GTE Pro | N.Catsburg, M.Tomczyk, P.Eng | BMW Team MTEK | BMW | 3m54.258s | 36.167s | 28 |
45 | GTE Am | M.Campbell, C.Ried, J.Andlauer | Dempsey-Proton Racing | Porsche | 3m55.304s | 37.213s | 21 |
46 | GTE Am | T.Flohr, F.Castellacci, G.Fisichella | Spirit of Race | Ferrari | 3m55.686s | 37.595s | 28 |
47 | GTE Am | P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda | Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin | 3m55.714s | 37.623s | 31 |
48 | GTE Am | L.Prette Jr., P.Prette, V.Abril | Proton Competition | Porsche | 3m56.046s | 37.955s | 20 |
49 | GTE Am | S.Hoshino, G.Roda, M.Cairoli | Dempsey-Proton Racing | Porsche | 3m56.282s | 38.191s | 29 |
50 | GTE Pro | P.Derani, O.Jarvis, J.Gounon | Risi Competizione | Ferrari | 3m56.429s | 38.338s | 12 |
51 | GTE Am | J.Segal, R.Baptista, W.Lu | JMW Motorsport | Ferrari | 3m57.017s | 38.926s | 21 |
52 | GTE Am | M.Wainwright, B.Barker, T.Preining | Gulf Racing | Porsche | 3m57.137s | 39.046s | 20 |
53 | GTE Am | M.Gostner, R.Frey, M.Gatting | Kessel Racing | Ferrari | 3m57.463s | 39.372s | 32 |
54 | GTE Am | T.Kimura, K.Cozzolino, C.Ledogar | CarGuy Racing | Ferrari | 3m57.480s | 39.389s | 29 |
55 | GTE Am | M.Ishikawa, O.Beretta, E.Cheever | MR Racing | Ferrari | 3m57.991s | 39.900s | 26 |
56 | GTE Am | C.MacNeil, T.Vilander, R.Smith | WeatherTech Racing | Ferrari | 3m58.280s | 40.189s | 18 |
57 | GTE Am | J.Bergmeister, P.Lindsey, E.Perfetti | Team Project 1 | Porsche | 3m58.326s | 40.235s | 26 |
58 | GTE Am | S.Yoluc, E.Hankey, C.Eastwood | TF Sport | Aston Martin | 3m58.522s | 40.431s | 24 |
59 | GTE Am | L.P.-Companc, M.Griffin, M.Cressoni | Clearwater Racing | Ferrari | 3m58.933s | 40.842s | 21 |
60 | GTE Am | B.Keating, J.Bleekemolen, F.Fraga | Keating Motorsports | Ford | 3m59.660s | 41.569s | 15 |
61 | GTE Am | C.Schiavoni, S.Pianezzola, A.Piccini | Kessel Racing | Ferrari | 3m59.948s | 41.857s | 27 |
62 | GTE Am | P.Long, T.Krohn, N.Jonsson | Dempsey-Proton Racing | Porsche | 4m00.472s | 42.381s | 8 |
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