Photo: MPS Agency
Glickenhaus Racing driver Romain Dumas set the pace in the second free practice session of the 24 Hours of Le Mans on Wednesday evening, with Corvette Racing leading GTE-Pro.
Dumas clocked 3:28.900 in the #708 Glickenhaus 007 Pipo around 24 minutes into the two-hour session which was held in the dark until midnight.
The Glickenhaus driver finished 0.264 seconds faster than Kamui Kobayashi in the second #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid.
Kobayashi made an improvement down the home straight to elevate his #7 Toyota ahead of the #8 sister car which was driven in turn by fastest lap of the session by Brendon Hartley.
Hartley was fastest in the early stages with a time of 3:29.248, with Mike Conway placing the #7 Toyota in second place. But a series of improvements by Dumas finally put the #708 Glickenhaus in the lead ahead of the two Japanese cars.
Conway improved to a time of 3:29.748 just under 40 minutes into the session, and his car remained third for much of the rest until Kobayashi found six tenths clearer.
It should be noted that there was an incident for Hartley when he rounded the #8 Toyota on the left in the gravel at the Mulsanne corner, but the New Zealander was able to continue.
Ryan Briscoe was third in the #709 Glickenhaus ahead of Matthieu Vaxiviere in the Alpine A480 Gibson, trailing Dumas by 2.540 and 3.692 seconds respectively.
Corvette Racing topped GTE-Pro thanks to Nicky Catsburg’s effort in 3:53.492 in the #63 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R.
The factory Chevrolet team initially raced first and second until Richard Lietz narrowly split the pair with a 3:53.669 in the #91 Porsche 911 RSR-19, in the same tenth as Alexander Sims driving the #64 Corvette.
The best Ferrari 488 GTE Evo was, for example, privateer Riley Motorsports in fourth position, with a time of 3:54.019 set by Felipe Fraga.
LMP2 was led by René Rast in the #31 Team WRT Oreca 07 Gibson, the three-time DTM champion setting a time of 3:33.119 for the Belgian team.
Rast held two tenths over second-placed Filipe Albuquerque in the No. 22 United Autosports Oreca, while last year’s GTE-Pro poleman Dries Vanthoor took the No. 32 WRT Oreca to third.
A dramatic change for the Inter Europol Competition LMP2 team, the Polish team’s Oreca n°43 stopping in front of the pits halfway through the session.
A team spokesman confirmed that the car developed a broken right front suspension during Fabio Scherer’s stint.
Some late lap times shaped the top end of the GTE-Am class as Mikkel Pedersen led the way for Team Project 1.
The Danish driver’s bid of 3:55.629 in the final five minutes lifted the #46 Porsche to first place, while Jan Heylen made an improvement in the meantime to take second place for the #88 Porsche of Dempsey-Proton Racing.
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