Le Mans 24h: #8 Toyota heads 1-2 in red-flagged FP2
The #8 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi set the fastest time in Free Practice 2 ahead of this weekend’s Le Mans 24 Hours, while WeatherTech's privateer Porsche topped GTE Pro.
The two-hour FP2 session was run in darkness throughout, with all drivers required to complete at least five laps at night ahead of Saturday’s race.
Jose Maria Lopez set the early pace in the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID he shares with Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi with a time of 3m29.810s, while Kazuki Nakajima worked down to 3m30.705s in the sister #8 machine.
Soon after taking over the #8 car he shares with Nakajima and Brendon Hartley, Buemi improved to a 3m30.176s and then lowered it to 3m29.351s, over four tenths up on the sister car.
Meanwhile, Conway locked up and went off into the gravel at Mulsanne on his first dark flying lap in the #7 Toyota, but made it back to the pits. Kobayashi closed to within 0.387s of Buemi in the closing stages, but was unable to wrest away the top spot.
After a red flag to recover Daniel Serra's #52 GTE Pro Ferrari, which came to a halt after suffering a puncture, there was a fierce competition for best-of-the-rest spot between Glickenhaus and Alpine.
Pipo Derani unleashed a lap of 3m30.112s in his #708 Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 with 30 minutes remaining to go third fastest, 0.761s off the quickest Toyota time.
That jumped him ahead of Nicolas Lapierre's 3m30.744s in the Alpine-Gibson A480, with Ryan Briscoe bringing up the rear in the five-car Hypercar field with the #709 Glickenhaus.
#709 Glickenhaus Racing Glickenhaus 007 LMH Hypercar, Ryan Briscoe, Richard Westbrook, Romain Dumas
Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt
In LMP2, Anthony Davison set the quickest time in Jota’s #38 ORECA at 3m32.390s, 0.218s ahead of Berlin E-Prix winner Norman Nato’s Realteam Racing #70 example.
Having missed out on Hyperpole, United Autosport's World Endurance Championship points-leading #22 car placed third, ahead of G-Drive’s #26 Aurus-badged ORECA and the #21 Dragonspeed USA car in Ben Hanley’s hands. However, the Briton ran into the gravel at Indianapolis on the very next lap.
The only incident of note besides that was the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports #24 car, which stopped on track in Patrick Kelly’s hands, causing a slow zone while it was towed away.
In GTE Pro, Ferrari returnee Sam Bird was the first to dip under the 3m50s barrier, producing a lap of 3m49.993s in the #52 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE that he shares with Serra and Miguel Molina, before Fred Makowiecki's #91 factory Porsche 911 RSR-19 usurped him with a 3m49.938s.
Serra hit trouble just before the halfway point of the session when the Brazilian suffered a huge lockup at Mulsanne Corner and had to crawl along as the tyre blew, wrecking the car's front-right bodywork.The car was recovered back to the pits on a tow truck.
After the red flag, Laurens Vanthoor grabbed the top spot in the Proton-run WeatherTech Racing Porsche with an impressive lap of 3m49.018s, putting the 2018 Le Mans GTE Pro class winner to the top spot by nine tenths of a second.
Behind Makowiecki and Serra, the #52 machine staying in the garage for the rest of the session, Neel Jani was fourth fastest in the #92 works Porsche on 3m50.589s, ahead of the #51 Ferrari driven by James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Come Ledogar.
#79 Weathertech Racing Porsche 911 RSR - 19 LMGTE Pro, Cooper MacNeil, Earl Bamber, Laurens Vanthoor
Photo by: Marc Fleury
In GTE Am, fastest qualifier Julien Andlauer again set the pace in his #88 Dempsey-Proton Porsche, the Frenchman's 3m51.452s effort beating Riccardo Pera’s early 3m52.206s that had kept the #56 Team Project 1 Porsche at the head of the times for the majority of the session.
Jeroen Bleekemolen further demoted Pera late on in his #388 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari to take second spot.
The #39 Spirit of Race Ferrari and #98 Northwest AMR Aston Martin were fourth and fifth.
Robby Foley crashed his #46 Team Project 1 Porsche at Tertre Rouge late on, suffering heavy right-rear damage and causing a red flag that curtailed the session three minutes early.
The next session is Free Practice 3 at 2pm local time on Thursday.
Le Mans 24 Hours - FP2 results:
| Cla | Drivers | Car | Class | Laps | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Sébastien Buemi  Kazuki Nakajima  Brendon Hartley |
Toyota GR010 - Hybrid | HYPERCAR | 29 | 3'29.351 | |
| 2 |  Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi  Jose Maria Lopez |
Toyota GR010 - Hybrid | HYPERCAR | 27 | 3'29.738 | 0.387 |
| 3 |  Pipo Derani  Franck Mailleux Olivier Pla |
Glickenhaus 007 LMH | HYPERCAR | 26 | 3'30.112 | 0.761 |
| 4 | Andre Negrao Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere |
Alpine A480 | HYPERCAR | 24 | 3'30.744 | 1.393 |
| 5 |  Ryan Briscoe Richard Westbrook Romain Dumas |
Glickenhaus 007 LMH | HYPERCAR | 26 | 3'31.109 | 1.758 |
| 6 |  Roberto Gonzalez  Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 25 | 3'32.390 | 3.039 |
| 7 | Esteban Garcia Loic Duval Norman Nato |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 28 | 3'32.608 | 3.257 |
| 8 | Philip Hanson Fabio Scherer Filipe Albuquerque |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 24 | 3'33.076 | 3.725 |
| 9 |  Roman Rusinov Franco Colapinto  Nyck de Vries |
Aurus 01 | LMP2 | 24 | 3'33.098 | 3.747 |
| 10 |  Henrik Hedman Ben Hanley  Juan Pablo Montoya |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 23 | 3'33.416 | 4.065 |
| 11 |  Robert Kubica Louis Deletraz  Ye Yifei |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 28 | 3'33.545 | 4.194 |
| 12 | Robin Frijns  Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 18 | 3'33.557 | 4.206 |
| 13 | Jakub Smiechowski Renger van der Zande Alex Brundle |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 24 | 3'33.617 | 4.266 |
| 14 |  Anders Fjordbach Jan Magnussen Kevin Magnussen |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 21 | 3'33.725 | 4.374 |
| 15 | Dennis Andersen  Ricky Taylor Marco Sorensen |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 27 | 3'33.867 | 4.516 |
| 16 | Nico Jamin  Jonathan Aberdein  Manuel Maldonado |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 26 | 3'33.923 | 4.572 |
| 17 |  Sean Gelael  Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 26 | 3'34.131 | 4.780 |
| 18 | Dwight Merriman Thomas Laurent Ryan Dalziel |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 17 | 3'34.171 | 4.820 |
| 19 | Paul di Resta Alex Lynn Wayne Boyd |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 26 | 3'34.287 | 4.936 |
| 20 | Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 28 | 3'34.566 | 5.215 |
| 21 | Rene Binder Guillermo Rojas Tristan Gommendy |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 24 | 3'34.593 | 5.242 |
| 22 | John Falb  Roberto Merhi Rui Andrade |
Aurus 01 | LMP2 | 28 | 3'34.779 | 5.428 |
| 23 | Julien Canal Will Stevens James Allen |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 28 | 3'35.263 | 5.912 |
| 24 |  Ryan Cullen Oliver Jarvis Felipe Nasr |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 26 | 3'35.696 | 6.345 |
| 25 |  Miro Konopka Oliver Webb Matej Konopka |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 21 | 3'36.779 | 7.428 |
| 26 | Patrick Kelly Gabriel Aubry Simon Trummer |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 20 | 3'36.935 | 7.584 |
| 27 | Tatiana Calderon  Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 25 | 3'37.248 | 7.897 |
| 28 | Takuma Aoki Nigel Bailly Matthieu Lahaye |
Oreca 07 | INNOVATIVE CAR | 22 | 3'37.708 | 8.357 |
| 29 | Paul Lafargue Paul-Loup Chatin Patrick Pilet |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 5 | 3'39.361 | 10.010 |
| 30 | Vincent Capillaire Arnold Robin Maxime Robin |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 26 | 3'40.003 | 10.652 |
| 31 | Cooper MacNeil Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 22 | 3'49.018 | 19.667 |
| 32 | James Winslow John Corbett Tom Cloet |
Ligier JSP 217 | LMP2 | 22 | 3'49.894 | 20.543 |
| 33 |  Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz Frédéric Makowiecki |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 25 | 3'49.938 | 20.587 |
| 34 | Daniel Serra Miguel Molina Sam Bird |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 10 | 3'49.993 | 20.642 |
| 35 | Kevin Estre Neel Jani Michael Christensen |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 27 | 3'50.589 | 21.238 |
| 36 | Dries Vanthoor Alvaro Parente Maxime Martin |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 18 | 3'50.877 | 21.526 |
| 37 | Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado Côme Ledogar |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 15 | 3'50.972 | 21.621 |
| 38 | Julien Andlauer Dominique Bastien Lance Arnold |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 16 | 3'51.452 | 22.101 |
| 39 | Pierre Ehret Christian Hook Jeroen Bleekemolen |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 21 | 3'51.959 | 22.608 |
| 40 |  Egidio Perfetti Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 26 | 3'52.206 | 22.855 |
| 41 | Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor Nick Catsburg |
Chevrolet Corvette C8.R | LMGTE PRO | 24 | 3'52.209 | 22.858 |
| 42 | Andrew Haryanto Alessio Picariello Marco Seefried |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 23 | 3'52.371 | 23.020 |
| 43 | Duncan Cameron David Perel Matthew Griffin |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 26 | 3'52.382 | 23.031 |
| 44 |  Paul Dalla Lana Nicki Thiim Marcos Gomes |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 26 | 3'52.385 | 23.034 |
| 45 | Matteo Cressoni Rino Mastronardi Callum Ilott |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 26 | 3'52.448 | 23.097 |
| 46 | Christian Ried Jaxon Evans Matt Campbell |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 20 | 3'52.550 | 23.199 |
| 47 | Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Andrew Watson |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 25 | 3'52.633 | 23.282 |
| 48 | Takeshi Kimura Scott Andrews Mikkel Jensen |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 23 | 3'52.663 | 23.312 |
| 49 | Thomas Flohr Giancarlo Fisichella Francesco Castellacci |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 24 | 3'52.795 | 23.444 |
| 50 | Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 24 | 3'52.908 | 23.557 |
| 51 | Brendan Iribe Ollie Millroy Ben Barnicoat |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 26 | 3'52.923 | 23.572 |
| 52 | Claudio Schiavoni Paolo Ruberti Raffaele Giammaria |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 22 | 3'52.938 | 23.587 |
| 53 | Ben Keating Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 24 | 3'53.021 | 23.670 |
| 54 | Harry Tincknell Vuttikhorn Inthraphuvasak Florian Latorre |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 24 | 3'53.072 | 23.721 |
| 55 | Rahel Frey Sarah Bovy Michelle Gatting |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 23 | 3'53.220 | 23.869 |
| 56 | Tommy Milner Nick Tandy Alexander Sims |
Chevrolet Corvette C8.R | LMGTE PRO | 25 | 3'53.389 | 24.038 |
| 57 | François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 25 | 3'53.610 | 24.259 |
| 58 | Roberto Lacorte Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 25 | 3'54.702 | 25.351 |
| 59 | John Hartshorne Ollie Hancock Ross Gunn |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 24 | 3'55.065 | 25.714 |
| 60 | Dennis Olsen Anders Buchardt Robert Foley |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 24 | 3'55.186 | 25.835 |
| 61 | Thomas Neubauer Rodrigo Sales Jody Fannin |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 24 | 3'59.912 | 30.561 |
| 62 | Robert Renauer Ralf Bohn Rolf Ineichen |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 25 | 4'01.314 | 31.963 |
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