Kevin Estre powered the #6 Porsche Penske 963 machine to the top of the timesheets after Friday’s FP2 session for the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, Round Three of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship.
The session, run in dry conditions concluded an atypical all-dry day of Friday running at the iconic Belgian circuit.
Estre’s effort of 2:04.162 around Spa was 0.121 ahead of Antonio Fuoco in the #50 Ferrari 499P as the Italian marque looks to continue the pace it had at Imola last time out.
The #2 Cadillac V-Series.R with its two-driver effort finished an impressive third in the final order, with Alex Lynn clocking in at 2:04.341, ensuring the top three was settled by less than two-tenths of a second.
Kamui Kobayashi was further adrift in fourth, with his 2:04.883 lap aboard the #7 Toyota GR010 – Hrybid seven tenths off of Estre’s ultimate pace.
The Porsche 963 appeared a capable car during the Friday afternoon conditions, which were cooler than in FP1, Callum Ilott in the #12 Jota entry (2:04.956) and Julien Andlauer in the #99 Proton Porsche (2:05.098) ensured that the customer teams had something to cheer about, finishing in fifth and sixth respectively.
Brendon Hartley finished in seventh position in the #8 Toyota, lapping Spa in a time of 2:05.640, ahead of eighth-placed Robert Kubica, who rounded out Ferrari’s effort behind the wheel of the ‘privateer’ #83 AF Corse 499P (2:05.706).
The #93 Peugeot 9X8 is reduced to a two-driver effort this weekend due to clashes with the FIA Formula E Berlin E-Prix and Mikkel Jensen took the French marque to ninth in the FP2 timesheet courtesy of a 2:05.981 effort.
1.908 seconds covered the top-10 in Friday’s afternoon practice session and it was Centenary Le Mans winner James Calado who posted the 10th fastest time of the afternoon, a 2:06.070 aboard the #51 Ferrari.
The Lexus RC F LMGT3 is an age-old GT3 car compared to some of its rivals, but Clemens Schmid proved you can teach an old dog new tricks by topping the LMGT3 standings in the #78 Akkodis-run machine.
The Austrian bested the rest of the LMGT3 pack in FP2 thanks to a 2:21.257 effort with the top three completed by more familiar names.
After a tricky Imola round that ended in an early retirement, Sarah Bovy injected positivity into the Iron Dames camp by finishing FP2 in second, setting a 2:21.372 at the wheel of the #85 Lamborghini Huracan LMGT3 Evo2 machine.
Completing the top three was MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi, buoyed by a podium last time out in his native Italy and lapping Spa in a time of 2:21.745 in the #46 BMW M4 car run by endurance specialists WRT.
