BMW hits the front in third Le Mans practice

Dries Vanthoor in the No. 15 BMW M Team WRT Hybrid V8 finished Free Practice 3 for the 24 Hours of Le Mans on top of the Hypercar leaderboard. The Belgian driver put in his best lap time of 3m23.302s in the final minutes of FP3, which beat Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA's fast time set by Will Stevens, which stood on top for most of the session.

Victor Martins in the No. 36 Alpine Endurance Team A424 followed the Belgian towards the top of the leaderboard with less than three minutes remaining, finishing the session second fastest with a 3m23.725s. Stevens stayed third, but improved on his best time towards the end, setting a 3m23.816s in the No. 12 JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R.

Sheldon van der Linde put the No. 20 WRT BMW up into fourth place, and Mathys Jaubert was a sensational fifth fastest in the No. 17 Genesis Magma Racing GMR-001.

Many of these fast laps came near the end as teams elected to run qualifying simulations; this ahead of the Hyperpole qualifying sessions which begin tonight at 8:00pm local time. Still, several teams found time to execute race simulations on the medium and even hard-compound tires, putting upwards of 30, and in some cases 40 laps on a single set.

Completing the top 10 from Hypercar were the No. 38 JOTA Cadillac, the No. 35 Alpine A424, the No. 101 WTR Cadillac, No. 51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P and the No. 19 Genesis GMR-001.

The No. 29 Forestier by Panis ORECA-07 Gibson remained at the top of LMP2 for the majority of the session, and finished with the top time, a 3m34.252s recorded by Oliver Gray.

In second place was the No. 30 Duqueine Team ORECA which was 0.001s behind the leader, followed by the No. 343 Inter Europol Competition ORECA, and then the fastest LMP2 Pro/Am car, the No. 14 TDS Racing ORECA in fourth place. The No. 24 Nielsen Racing car rounded out the top five in class.

Most of the significant drama this session happened in LMP2; young Horst Felix Felbermayr brought out a caution after he spun the No. 44 Proton Competition car off into the gravel at the Porsche Curves, though he was able to zig-zag his way out of the predicament as instructed by race control. There was also a full course yellow for debris after the No. 29 Forestier/Panis car was pushed off by the No. 009 Aston Martin Valkyrie, into a braking marker sign.

But the big one came with just 25 laps remaining, after Daniel Schneider lost control of his No. 222 United Autosports ORECA in the Ford Chicane and crashed head-on into the tire barriers. The car suffered significant front-end damage which will have to be repaired in time for Hyperpole later this evening.

In LMGT3, Eduardo Barrichello in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 set the fastest time, a 3m53.708s. It put him two-tenths clear of fellow Brazilian Augusto Farfus in the No. 32 Team WRT BMW, who was second fastest.

The No. 87 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus was raising eyebrows all session, taking curbs especially aggressively with José María López at the wheel; that car finished third quickest ahead of the No. 54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari in fourth, and the No. 78 ASP Lexus in fifth.

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