Loïc Duval in the No.1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro set the fastest time in a fully dry 60-minute practice session, the final running before the critical qualifying session later on this evening, which will set the grid for the 6 Hours of Circuit of the Americas. The conditions in today’s session were slightly cooler than yesterday’s sticky conditions, with track temperatures peaking at 28.3°C
The Frenchman, who is making his FIA WEC return after his Le Mans practice accident in June, stopped the clocks at 1m49.480s - the fastest lap of the Lone Star Le Mans weekend so far. This time, which was set in the first twenty minutes of the session, beat the sister No.2 Audi of Marcel Fässler, Benoît Tréluyerand André Lotterer by 0.680s.
Porsche Team claimed third position with the No.14 entry of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb, while the highest placed Toyota TS 040 Hybrid was in fourth place, with the No.8 car of Nicolas Lapierre, Anthony Davidson and SébastienBuemi just a tenth of a second behind the Porsche 919 Hybrid.
With teams electing to concentrate on longer fuel runs in the second half of the session, most of the action came in the first half of it this morning.
This evening’s qualifying session will begin at 18h00 local time with a 25-minute LMGTE-PRO and LMGTE-AM session, followed by the LMP1, LMP1-L and LMP2 cars, scheduled to hit the track at 18h35 local.
LMP –L
In the LMP1 –L category, Rebellion Racing continued a comfortable 1-2 with the No.12 Rebellion Racing R-One-Toyota of Nicolas Prost, Nick Heidfeld and Mathias Beche clear of their team mates - Andrea Belicchi, Fabio Leimer and Dominik Kraihamer - in the No.13 Toyota-powered racer by 1.7s.
Rebellion’s opposition for the rest of the season – Lotus – only completed three laps in the session as the team were confined to the pit garage for most of it. Christophe Bouchut, Lucas Auer and James Rossiter were left frustrated by losing valuable track time in the new CLM P1/01-AER.
LMP2
As they did in the first (dry) free practice session yesterday afternoon, G-Drive Racing again headed the LMP2 field this morning. Olivier Pla set a 1m56.601s lap in the No.26 Ligier JS P2 but reckoned a quicker one was possible as he hit GT traffic on the following lap.
Second place in LMP2 was the No.47 KCMG ORECA-Nissan driven by Matthew Howson, Richard Bradley and Tsugio Matsuda. Japanese based Briton Bradley registered the best lap of 1m57.438s.
Florida based team – Extreme Speed Motorsports continued to build a good basis for their FIA World Endurance Championship debut tomorrow with third fastest time in their HPD ARX 03B-Honda. Ryan Dalziel set the time of 1m58.004s.
Series points leaders #27 SMP Racing Oreca-Nissan got back on track after its technical issues in last night’s free practice session to claim fourth fastest time for Sergey Zlobin, Nicolas Minsassian and Maurizio Mediani.
Full results can be found HERE
Sam Smith
