Portimao WEC: Di Resta completes LMP2 clean sweep of practice
Paul di Resta and United Autosport completed a clean sweep for LMP2 machinery across free practice for Sunday's Portimao World Endurance Championship round, as the Glickenhaus made a dramatic improvement.
The ex-Formula 1 driver knocked two tenths from the lap with which he had topped the Saturday morning session in United's solo ORECA-Gibson 07, the Scot getting down to a 1m31.628s to top the times over the final 60 minutes of practice.
The time gave him the top spot by a couple of hundredths of a second over the Alpine-Gibson A480 grandfathered LMP1.
Nicolas Lapierre set a 1m31.652s in the car that formerly raced as the Rebellion R-13 to head the Hypercar class.
Antonio Felix da Costa, who had led the way in FP1, took third place overall with his best time of the weekend, a 1m31.765s, in the fastest of the Jota team's LMP2 ORECAs
The solo Glickenhaus Le Mans Hypercar jumped to fourth position ahead of the two Toyota in the dying moments of the session, courtesy of a 1m31.916s from Richard Westbrook.
That put the Pipo-engined 007 LMH just under a tenth up on Sebastien Buemi in the best of the Toyotas and four tenths up on Mike Conway, who ended up ninth fastest overall in the sister LMH car with a 1m32.310s.
#709 Glickenhaus Racing Glickenhaus 007 LMH: Ryan Briscoe, Romain Dumas, Richard Westbrook
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
The American boutique manufacturer bounced back from gearbox problems that had curtailed its running in the Saturday morning session.
Alex Brundle was sixth fastest overall and third in LMP2 aboard the Inter Europol ORECA with a fastest lap of 1m31.998s.
Racing Team Nederlands and WRT filled out the next two spots with their LMP2 ORECAs driven by Job van Uitert and Robin Frijns respectively.
Tenth place behind the second Toyota was taken by the DragonSpeed ORECA with Ben Hanley at the wheel.
Porsche returned to the top of the times in GTE Pro with Kevin Estre.
The Frenchman recorded a 1m38.082s to jump ahead of Gianmaria Bruni's 1m38.850s in the second of the Manthey-run 911 RSRs.
Daniel Serra took third position in class aboard the best of the factory AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evos, his best lap of 1m38.953s just edging out team-mate James Calado.
Matteo Cairoli set the pace in GTE Am with aboard his Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR.
Qualifying for Sunday's Portimao 8 Hours, round two of the 2021 WEC, begins at 6pm local time in Portugal.
FP3 results:
| Cla | Drivers | Car | Class | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Philip Hanson Wayne Boyd Paul di Resta |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'31.628 | |
| 2 |  Andre Negrao  Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere |
Alpine A480 | HYPERCAR | 1'31.652 | 0.024 |
| 3 |  Roberto Gonzalez  Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'31.765 | 0.137 |
| 4 |  Ryan Briscoe Romain Dumas Richard Westbrook |
Glickenhaus 007 LMH | HYPERCAR | 1'31.916 | 0.288 |
| 5 |  Sébastien Buemi  Kazuki Nakajima  Brendon Hartley |
Toyota GR010 - Hybrid | HYPERCAR | 1'31.974 | 0.346 |
| 6 |  Jakub Smiechowski Louis Deletraz Alex Brundle |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'31.998 | 0.370 |
| 7 |  Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'32.065 | 0.437 |
| 8 | Robin Frijns  Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'32.195 | 0.567 |
| 9 | Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi  Jose Maria Lopez |
Toyota GR010 - Hybrid | HYPERCAR | 1'32.310 | 0.682 |
| 10 |  Henrik Hedman  Juan Pablo Montoya Ben Hanley |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'32.378 | 0.750 |
| 11 |  Sean Gelael  Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'32.511 | 0.883 |
| 12 | Esteban Garcia Mathias Beche Norman Nato |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'32.626 | 0.998 |
| 13 |  Jan Magnussen Anders Fjordbach Dennis Andersen |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'32.827 | 1.199 |
| 14 | Tatiana Calderon  Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'33.356 | 1.728 |
| 15 |  Miro Konopka Oliver Webb Tom Jackson |
Ligier JSP 217 | LMP2 | 1'33.842 | 2.214 |
| 16 | Kevin Estre Neel Jani Michael Christensen |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE PRO | 1'38.082 | 6.454 |
| 17 |  Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz Frédéric Makowiecki |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE PRO | 1'38.850 | 7.222 |
| 18 | Daniel Serra  Miguel Molina |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 1'38.953 | 7.325 |
| 19 |  Egidio Perfetti Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 1'39.186 | 7.558 |
| 20 | Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 1'39.199 | 7.571 |
| 21 | Christian Ried Jaxon Evans Matt Campbell |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 1'39.577 | 7.949 |
| 22 | Thomas Flohr Francesco Castellacci Giancarlo Fisichella |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 1'39.583 | 7.955 |
| 23 | Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 1'39.625 | 7.997 |
| 24 | Roberto Lacorte Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 1'39.709 | 8.081 |
| 25 | François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 1'39.721 | 8.093 |
| 26 | Rahel Frey Michelle Gatting Manuela Gostner |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 1'39.889 | 8.261 |
| 27 | Claudio Schiavoni Andrea Piccini Matteo Cressoni |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 1'39.984 | 8.356 |
| 28 |  Dominique Bastien Marco Seefried Julien Andlauer |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 1'40.087 | 8.459 |
| 29 | Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Andrew Watson |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 1'40.236 | 8.608 |
| 30 | Takeshi Kimura Mikkel Jensen Scott Andrews |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 1'40.402 | 8.774 |
| 31 | Ben Keating Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 1'40.479 | 8.851 |
| 32 |  Paul Dalla Lana Augusto Farfus Marcos Gomes |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 1'40.595 | 8.967 |
| View full results | |||||
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