Sebastien Buemi finished atop the timesheets behind the wheel of the #8 Toyota GR010 – Hyrbid in the night-time Free Practice 2 session for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Buemi’s 3:27.474 effort was a full 0.524 clear of second-placed Robert Kubica in the ‘privateer’ #89 AF Corse Ferrari 499P with Kevin Estre third in the #6 Penske Porsche 963, 0.591 back from the ultimate benchmark.
Mere hours after the field fought to make the cut for Thursday’s Hyperpole session, Free Practice 2 got underway at 22:00 local time.
The second practice session of this year’s Le Mans extravaganza provided essential running under the cover of darkness in preparation for this coming weekend’s 24-hour enduro.
Moreover, it wasn’t just lap times and track acclimatisation that was important, as teams went through the motions of pit stops and driver changes amid the nighttime conditions which was a vital task to tick off ahead of lights out on Saturday.
Night at Le Mans is fraught with jeopardy as visibility is limited and three separate classes with varying speeds look to navigate the circuit amid a dizzying array of headlights.
However, at half distance in FP2 there had been no major incidents, at which point Buemi topped the timesheets in the #8 Toyota courtesy of a 3:27.474 lap time.
Malthe Jakobsen led LMP2 in the #37 Cool Racing Oreca 07 – Gibson at the halfway point with Maxime Martin topping LMGT3 in the #46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 machine.
Just after halfway through the session, Brazilian Felipe Drugovich was forced to slowly tour at Full Course Yellow speeds around the later half of the circuit having been saddled with a puncture aboard the #311 Whelen Engineering Cadilac V-Series.R.
Luckily, Durgovich got back to the pits unscathed.
Another awkward moment occurred when Sali Yoluc came to a temporary halt at Turn 1 in the #66 Ferrari 296 LMGT3 machine before a reset enabled him to get underway again.
At the same moment, Ferdinand Habsburg also had a temporary stoppage on track aboard the #35 Alpine A424 before getting back up to full speed and the Austrian driver wound up seventh fastest in the session courtesy of a best time of 3:28.644.
Buemi’s time at the halfway mark stood for him to remain on top in the session, ahead of Kubica in the #83 Ferrari and Estre in the #6 Porsche.
Norman Nato was fourth fastest aboard the #12 Hertz Team Jota Porsche courtesy of a 3:28.352 effort, but co-driver Callum Ilott brought the session to a premature end with a heavy crash coming onto the Mulsanne straight just under a minute before the session’s end.
Thankfully Ilott was able to walk away unscathed, but significant damage to the front end of his 963 car means the JOTA mechanics will be enduring a long night of repairs.
Nicolas Lapierre impressed in the #36 Alpine A424 to round out the top five (3:28.458 lap time).
Renger van der Zande led the Cadillac contingent in the #3 V-Series.R entry run by Chip Ganassi with the Dutchman setting a 3:28.485 to go sixth fastest.
In eighth behind van der Zande and Alpine’s Habsburg was last year’s overall winner Alessandro Pier Guidi at the wheel of the #51 Ferrari 499P thanks to a 3:28.853 laptime.
20 minutes late into the session was the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid following Kamui Kobayashi’s spin in qualifying.
Kobayashi and company needed a clean practice session to make up for their qualifying disappointment, which saw the #7 get its laps deleted for triggering a red flag, thus missing out on Hyperpole.
The #7 managed to get a solid run in and Nyck de Vires posted the ninth fastest time (3:29.106).
Matt Campbell completed the top-10 aboard the #5 Penske Porsche with a best time of 3:29.164.
In LMP2, Jakobsen’s P1 standing at the halfway point was carried until the end of the session with his 3:35.386 laptime a full 1.165 seconds clear of United Autosports Oliver Jarvis in the #22 car and 1.214 clear of Scott Huffaker in the Pro/Am Panis Racing #65 entry.
Fourth and fifth overall in LMP2 also went to Pro/Am entries, namely James Allen in the #30 Duqueine entry and Ben Barnicoat in the #183 AF Corse car.
The third fastest LMP2 all-pro entry was last year’s winner the #34 Inter Europol car, with Clement Novalak sixth fastest overall with a best time of 3:37.494.
Proton Competition ruled the roost in LMGT3 with Dennis Olsen leading the way thanks to a 3:58.689 laptime in the #88 Ford Mustang LMGT3.
Olsen’s time was just 0.027 quicker than Marco Sorensen in the #777 D’Station Racing Aston Martin Vantage LMGT3 with Augusto Farfus just one-thousandth of a second further back in third behind the wheel of the Team WRT #31 BMW M4 LMGT3 machine.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans continues with FP3 on Thursday at 15:00 local time.
