New Zealander Richie Stanaway, driving the No.95 Aston Martin LMGTE Am entry, will certainly have impressed the team’s bosses today as he once again led both the Pro and Am LMGTE categories at the end of the third and final free practice session. The Vantage V8 lapped in a time of 2:03.984, four tenths of a second ahead of 2012/3 6 Hours of Shanghai winner Darren Turner in the No.97 entry.
Porsche Team Manthey’s No.92 911 RSR broke up the Aston supremacy by placing itself in the mix among the British cars – Fred Makowiecki setting a best lap of 2:04.474 in the first 30 minutes of the session.
Portuguese driver Pedro Lamy took the No.98 Aston Martin Vantage V8 to second in the Am category, 0.07 seconds ahead of the first of the Ferrari 458 Italias. Davide Rigon in the No.71 AF Corse entry was marginally ahead of the team’s sister car, the GTE championship-leading No.51.
The session started dry, but with patches of damp around the circuit which resulted in a brief excursion off track by Gianluca Roda in the No.90 8Star Motorsports entry, and with 20 minutes to go there were reports of rain around the circuit but they didn’t amount to much.
Qualifying for the LMGTE Pro and Am entries follows at 13h20 local time for a 25-minute session. Each of the two nominated drivers from each car must set at least two timed laps during qualifying. The average of the four best lap times (the best two of each driver) will serve as the reference time for establishing the grid. It’s also race day for the support series, with five separate 30 or 35-minute races taking place.
Full results can be found HERE
Fiona Miller
