Practice report
WEC 24 Hours of Le Mans
Le Mans 24h: Buemi leads Toyota 1-2 in second practice
Toyota’s Sebastien Buemi set the fastest time in the first night-time running ahead of this weekend’s Le Mans 24 Hours, while Porsche and Ferrari dueled over top spot in GTE Pro.
Charles Bradley
Edited: Aug 19, 2021, 2:54 PM
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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, which he shares with Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi, with a time of 3m29.810s, while Kazuki Nakajima worked down to 3m30.705s in the #8, which he shares with Buemi and Brendon Hartley.
Buemi took over the #8 and immediately improved to 3m30.176s and then lowered his best time 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 #7 but was able to bring the car back to the pits.
On his final run, Kobayashi got to within 0.387s of P1, setting some demon sector times, but was unable to wrest away the top spot.
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After a red flag to recover a GTE Pro Ferrari, 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 007 with 30 minutes remaining, 0.761s off the quickest Toyota time. Nicolas Lapierre lapped in 3m30.744s in the Alpine-Gibson A480 to place fourth, with Ryan Briscoe fifth in the #709 Glickenhaus on 3m31.109s.
In LMP2, Anthony Davidson set the quickest time in JOTA’s #38 Oreca at 3m32.390s, ahead of recent Berlin E-Prix winner Norman Nato’s Realteam Racing #70 example at 3m32.608s.
United Autosports USA’s #22 car was next up, ahead of G-Drive’s #26 and the #21 DragonSpeed USA car in Ben Hanley’s hands. However, Hanley fenced the car 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.
Porsche beats Ferrari in GT classes
In GTE Pro, 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 Daniel Serra and Miguel Molina. Fred Makowiecki then topped that in his #91 Porsche 911 RSR-19 with 3m49.938s.
Serra hit trouble just before the halfway point of the session when he suffered a huge lockup at Mulsanne Corner and had to crawl along as the tyre blew, wrecking its front-right bodywork and ultimately forcing him to a halt. That led to a red flag to get a recovery truck on track and to clear up the debris.
After the red flag, Laurens Vanthoor grabbed P1 in the WeatherTech Racing Porsche with an impressive lap of 3m49.018s, topping the class by nine tenths of a second.
Neel Jani was fourth fastest in the #92 Manthey-run Porsche on 3m50.589s, ahead of the #51 Ferrari of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Come Ledogar.
In GTE Am, the #88 Dempsey-Proton Porsche of Julien Andlauer, Dominique Bastien and Lance David Arnold set the pace at 3m51.452s to top 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 P2. The #39 Spirit of Race Ferrari and #98 Northwest AMR Aston Martin were fourth and fifth.
The #46 Team Project 1 Porsche of Robby Foley crashed at Tertre Rouge late on, which caused 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 Time Gap 1 8 Sébastien Buemi
Kazuki Nakajima
Brendon Hartley Toyota GR010 - Hybrid HYPERCAR 3'29.351 2 7
Mike Conway
Kamui Kobayashi
Jose Maria Lopez Toyota GR010 - Hybrid HYPERCAR 3'29.738 0.387 3 708
Pipo Derani
Franck Mailleux
Olivier Pla Glickenhaus 007 LMH HYPERCAR 3'30.112 0.761 4 36
Andre Negrao
Nicolas Lapierre
Matthieu Vaxiviere Alpine A480 HYPERCAR 3'30.744 1.393 5 709
Ryan Briscoe
Richard Westbrook
Romain Dumas Glickenhaus 007 LMH HYPERCAR 3'31.109 1.758 6 38
Roberto Gonzalez
Antonio Felix da Costa
Anthony Davidson Oreca 07 LMP2 3'32.390 3.039 7 70
Esteban Garcia
Loic Duval
Norman Nato Oreca 07 LMP2 3'32.608 3.257 8 22
Philip Hanson
Fabio Scherer
Filipe Albuquerque Oreca 07 LMP2 3'33.076 3.725 9 26
Roman Rusinov
Franco Colapinto
Nyck de Vries Aurus 01 LMP2 3'33.098 3.747 10 21
Henrik Hedman
Ben Hanley
Juan Pablo Montoya Oreca 07 LMP2 3'33.416 4.065 11 41
Robert Kubica
Louis Deletraz
Ye Yifei Oreca 07 LMP2 3'33.545 4.194 12 31
Robin Frijns
Ferdinand Habsburg
Charles Milesi Oreca 07 LMP2 3'33.557 4.206 13 34
Jakub Smiechowski
Renger van der Zande
Alex Brundle Oreca 07 LMP2 3'33.617 4.266 14 49
Anders Fjordbach
Jan Magnussen
Kevin Magnussen Oreca 07 LMP2 3'33.725 4.374 15 20
Dennis Andersen
Ricky Taylor
Marco Sorensen Oreca 07 LMP2 3'33.867 4.516 16 32
Nico Jamin
Jonathan Aberdein
Manuel Maldonado Oreca 07 LMP2 3'33.923 4.572 17 28
Sean Gelael
Stoffel Vandoorne
Tom Blomqvist Oreca 07 LMP2 3'34.131 4.780 18 17
Dwight Merriman
Thomas Laurent
Ryan Dalziel Oreca 07 LMP2 3'34.171 4.820 19 23
Paul di Resta
Alex Lynn
Wayne Boyd Oreca 07 LMP2 3'34.287 4.936 20 29
Frits van Eerd
Giedo van der Garde
Job Van Uitert Oreca 07 LMP2 3'34.566 5.215 21 30
Rene Binder
Guillermo Rojas
Tristan Gommendy Oreca 07 LMP2 3'34.593 5.242 22 25
John Falb
Roberto Merhi
Rui Andrade Aurus 01 LMP2 3'34.779 5.428 23 65
Julien Canal
Will Stevens
James Allen Oreca 07 LMP2 3'35.263 5.912 24 82
Ryan Cullen
Oliver Jarvis
Felipe Nasr Oreca 07 LMP2 3'35.696 6.345 25 44
Miro Konopka
Oliver Webb
Matej Konopka Oreca 07 LMP2 3'36.779 7.428 26 24
Patrick Kelly
Gabriel Aubry
Simon Trummer Oreca 07 LMP2 3'36.935 7.584 27 1
Tatiana Calderon
Sophia Flörsch
Beitske Visser Oreca 07 LMP2 3'37.248 7.897 28 84 Takuma Aoki
Nigel Bailly
Matthieu Lahaye Oreca 07 INNOVATIVE CAR 3'37.708 8.357 29 48
Paul Lafargue
Paul-Loup Chatin
Patrick Pilet Oreca 07 LMP2 3'39.361 10.010 30 39
Vincent Capillaire
Arnold Robin
Maxime Robin Oreca 07 LMP2 3'40.003 10.652 31 79
Cooper MacNeil
Earl Bamber
Laurens Vanthoor Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 3'49.018 19.667 32 74
James Winslow
John Corbett
Tom Cloet Ligier JSP 217 LMP2 3'49.894 20.543 33 91 Gianmaria Bruni
Richard Lietz
Frédéric Makowiecki Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 3'49.938 20.587 34 52
Daniel Serra
Miguel Molina
Sam Bird Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 3'49.993 20.642 35 92
Kevin Estre
Neel Jani
Michael Christensen Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 3'50.589 21.238 36 72
Dries Vanthoor
Alvaro Parente
Maxime Martin Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 3'50.877 21.526 37 51
Alessandro Pier Guidi
James Calado
Côme Ledogar Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 3'50.972 21.621 38 88
Julien Andlauer
Dominique Bastien
Lance Arnold Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 3'51.452 22.101 39 388 Pierre Ehret
Christian Hook
Jeroen Bleekemolen Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'51.959 22.608 40 56
Egidio Perfetti
Matteo Cairoli
Riccardo Pera Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 3'52.206 22.855 41 63
Antonio Garcia
Jordan Taylor
Nick Catsburg Chevrolet Corvette C8.R LMGTE PRO 3'52.209 22.858 42 18
Andrew Haryanto
Alessio Picariello
Marco Seefried Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 3'52.371 23.020 43 55
Duncan Cameron
David Perel
Matthew Griffin Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'52.382 23.031 44 98
Paul Dalla Lana
Nicki Thiim
Marcos Gomes Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE AM 3'52.385 23.034 45 80
Matteo Cressoni
Rino Mastronardi
Callum Ilott Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'52.448 23.097 46 77
Christian Ried
Jaxon Evans
Matt Campbell Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 3'52.550 23.199 47 777
Satoshi Hoshino
Tomonobu Fujii
Andrew Watson Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE AM 3'52.633 23.282 48 57
Takeshi Kimura
Scott Andrews
Mikkel Jensen Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'52.663 23.312 49 54
Thomas Flohr
Giancarlo Fisichella
Francesco Castellacci Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'52.795 23.444 50 86
Michael Wainwright
Benjamin Barker
Tom Gamble Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 3'52.908 23.557 51 71 Brendan Iribe
Ollie Millroy
Ben Barnicoat Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'52.923 23.572 52 60
Claudio Schiavoni
Paolo Ruberti
Raffaele Giammaria Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'52.938 23.587 53 33
Ben Keating
Dylan Pereira
Felipe Fraga Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE AM 3'53.021 23.670 54 99
Harry Tincknell
Vuttikhorn Inthraphuvasak
Florian Latorre Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 3'53.072 23.721 55 85 Rahel Frey
Sarah Bovy
Michelle Gatting Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'53.220 23.869 56 64
Tommy Milner
Nick Tandy
Alexander Sims Chevrolet Corvette C8.R LMGTE PRO 3'53.389 24.038 57 83
François Perrodo
Nicklas Nielsen
Alessio Rovera Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'53.610 24.259 58 47
Roberto Lacorte
Giorgio Sernagiotto
Antonio Fuoco Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'54.702 25.351 59 95
John Hartshorne
Ollie Hancock
Ross Gunn Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE AM 3'55.065 25.714 60 46
Dennis Olsen
Anders Buchardt
Robert Foley Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 3'55.186 25.835 61 66 Thomas Neubauer
Rodrigo Sales
Jody Fannin Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 3'59.912 30.561 62 69
Robert Renauer
Ralf Bohn
Rolf Ineichen Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 4'01.314 31.963 View full results
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