Toyota to the front in third Interlagos practice

After Porsche ran fastest during both WEC practice sessions yesterday at Interlagos, Toyota’s No. 8 GR010 sat atop the timing screens in the final run ahead of qualifying this morning.

The quickest time came early in the session, when Ryo Hirakawa set a 1m23.695s to go almost half a second clear of the field. It wasn’t the fastest time of the weekend so far, though. The best tour of the 2.7-mile circuit to this point was set during Free Practice 2 yesterday, when Kevin Estre completed a 1m23.508s in the No. 6 Penske Porsche.

Ferrari-AF Corse’s No. 50 499P took second, with Antonio Fuoco reeling off a 1m24.185s. The No. 15 BMW Team WRT M Hybrid V8 made it three makes in the top three after Dries Vanthoor set a 1m24.287s.

The No. 7 Toyota finished up fourth, with the No. 12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R completing the top five.

Once again, it was close in Hypercar, with the top 12 cars in the class lapping within a second of each other. However, the pair of Penske-run factory Porsche 963s ended up at the bottom of the pile in 17th and 18th, over two seconds off. Still, Estre and Julien Andlauer’s hot laps from yesterday were enough to keep the No. 6 and No. 5 first and second in the combined practice times respectively. Thus the team should remain a contender for pole after seemingly focusing on race pace in the 60-minute session.

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In LMGT3, Jonny Edgar set a 1m34.414s during a quali sim in TF Sport’s No. 33 Corvette to go top of FP3 and the combined rankings across the three sessions.

“I was happy with the car,” he said post-session “The change we made for this session helped a bit. I’m happy to end P1. Practice doesn’t matter much, but it’s always nice to be near the top. I’m happy with the car feels.

“After driving yesterday and waking up again, I feel much more comfortable with the track as well. It looks very close on lap times. I think it’s going to be very important to make no mistakes because it seems like a lot of cars are similar on pace. So far, everyone is doing a good job, so I’m looking forward to qualifying and the race.”

The No. 10 Racing Spirit of Leman Vantage was a tenth off after Eduardo Barrichello’s best lap. The No. 88 Proton Competition Mustang climbed to third on the screens after a 1m34.613s.

The session ran incident-free, though it did start late due to lengthy barrier repairs from an incident in the supporting GT series before the session.

Qualifying is set to get underway at 2:45pm local time this afternoon.

RESULTS