The final Free Practice session of the 4 Hours of Le Castellet weekend saw the no37 Cool Racing Oreca 07-Gibson post the fastest lap of the 90-minute period, but it was extremely close with the top four cars split by less than a tenth of a second.
Reigning champion Yifei Ye posted the best time of FP2, a 1m43.634 lap of the 5.7km circuit, which was just 0.017s ahead of the no34 Racing Team Turkey Oreca driven by Jack Aitken.The British drivers time was the best of the seven LMP2 Pro/Am competitors and 0.005s ahead of the no9 Prema Racing Oreca, with Ye’s co-champion from last season, Louis Deletraz onboard.The top 4 was rounded out by the no19 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca of Bent Viscaal, the Dutch driver’s time of 1m43.730 just 0.096 behind Ye at the head of the field.
The LMP3 category was, once again, headed by the no17 Cool Racing Ligier, with Denmark’s Malthe Jakobsen setting the pace with a 1m50.400, half a second ahead of the no15 RLR MSport Ligier of Valentino Catalano.Third fastest was Ross Kaiser in the no6 360 Racing Ligier, the British driver setting a 1m51.143, two tenths ahead of the no14 Inter Europol Competition entry.
The no77 Porsche 911 was the fastest of the twelve LMGTE entries, with Gianmaria Bruni posting a 1m53.505 lap in the Proton Competition run 911 RSR-19, 0.146s ahead of the no57 Kessel Racing Ferrari after Mikkel Jensen set a 1m53.651.
The no18 Absolute Racing Porsche of Alessio Picariello was third quickest, just 0.078s ahead of the first of the two Aston Martins, the no95 Oman Racing with TF Sport Vantage of Henrique Chaves.
The scene is now set for this afternoon’s qualifying for the 4 Hours of Le Castellet, which begins with LMGTE at 13h50.
CLICK HERE for the result from FP2
