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Penske Porsche rebounds to lead third Le Mans practice
Porsche Penske Motorsport led Free Practice 3 for the 93rd annual Le Mans 24 Hours.
Conditions were sunny and warm once again for the three-hour afternoon session, though overnight rain showers washed away a lot of the rubber which had been put down to that point. Teams spent most of Free Practice 3 honing in on their race pace, running on used sets of tires.
On a fresher set, Mathieu Jaminet in the No. 5 Penske Porsche 963 set the quickest time of the session with just 37 minutes left, recording a 3m24.717s to go to first place.
Earl Bamber made a late push to put the No. 38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R into second place with a 3m25.533s, just a few hundredths up on teammate Will Stevens' best in the No. 12 JOTA Cadillac.
The No. 51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P was fourth, rounding out the top five with the privately entered No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari. Behind them were the No. 20 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8, No. 4 Penske Porsche, and the No. 311 Whelen Cadillac.
Down in 12th was the No. 6 Penske Porsche, which had been disqualified from yesterday's first qualifying session for a minimum weight breach.
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In third was the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA as the best "standard LMP2 car, then the No. 22 United Autosports car and the No. 199 AO by TF "Spike" machine.
A late improvement from Zacharie Robichon in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage LMGT3 put the American team up top in its class. Robichon set a 3m55.897s to displace the No. 92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche 911 LMGT3 R into second place.
LMGT3's top five was completed by the No. 78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus, the No. 10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin, and the No. 46 Team WRT BMW.
Incidents of note included a spin at the Ford Chicane for Vista AF Corse's Thomas Flohr, and Jonas Ried sliding his Iron Lynx-Proton LMP2 off at Indianapolis and into the tyre barriers, before continuing.
Just past the midpoint, CLX Pure Rxcing's Aliaksandr Malykhin clipped the tire barrier at the exit of the first Mulsanne Chicane when trying to avoid a crash with Iron Dames' Celia Martin. That impact brought out a red flag for barrier repairs, though Malykhin did drive the damaged No. 37 ORECA back to the pits.
Simultaneously, Francois Perrodo in the No. 183 AF Corse ORECA LMP2 slid off at the entry of the Porsche Curves, while trying to get through GT traffic, and skipped through the gravel and into the tire wall.
And in the closing minutes, the No. 28 IDEC Sport ORECA LMP2 lost its left-front wheel exiting the Porsche Curves. Job van Uitert limped the car back to pit lane while a Slow Zone was deployed.
In addition, the No. 101 Cadillac WTR V-Series.R underwent an engine change after an issue with its primary V8 motor was detected during the session. The change was to prevent a bigger problem during tonight's Hyperpole qualifying, and the blue Cadillac returned to the circuit with seven minutes left.
UP NEXT: Hyperpole qualifying for LMP2 and LMGT3 begins at 8:00pm local time, with the Hypercar sessions starting at 9:05pm.
R.J. O'Connell
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