Aston Martin Beats Toyota to Conclude Test Day On Top

Photo: Andrea Lorenzina/DPPI

Aston Martin and The Heart of Racing Team topped the official test day ahead of next week’s 24 Hours of Le Mans as Tom Gamble set the fastest time of both the afternoon session and the day overall at the wheel of the No. 007 Valkyrie.

Gamble posted his best effort of 3:26.293 with a little under two hours left on the clock in the three-hour session, going over half a second clear of the field in the process.

The British driver’s time would remain unbeaten thereafter, although Brendon Hartley managed to cut that margin down to just 0.108 seconds with around 15 minutes remaining in the repaired No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid.

Following the incident in the morning session involving Hartley’s co-driver Ryo Hirakawa and the Algarve Pro Racing LMP2 car of Jake Hughes, Toyota was able to repair the No. 8 car during the lunch break and was ready for the start of the afternoon session.

Third-fastest was the best of the Cadillac V-Series.Rs, the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA car, in which Norman Nato set a best effort of 3:26.853.

Alpine’s pair of A424s completed the top five, as Ferdinand Habsburg in the No. 35 car and Le Mans debutant Victor Martins in the sister No. 36 machine both made final-hour improvements, Habsburg lapping 0.645 seconds off the pace.

The Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac that topped the morning session was sixth this time around in the hands of Jordan Taylor.

A last-ditch improvement by Robin Frijns put the FIA World Endurance Championship points-leading No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8 up to seventh, demoting the No. 7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi to eighth and the No. 51 Ferrari 499P of Alessandro Pier Guidi to ninth.

That effort came not long after Pier Guidi appeared to spin and hit the barriers at low speed at Indianapolis, with the car appearing to escape any real damage.

Paul-Loup Chatin made a late jump to complete the top-ten aboard the quicker of the two brand-new Genesis GMR-001s, the No. 19 car.

All eight Hypercar manufacturers lapped within just over nine-tenths off the pace, with Peugeot only just failing to get the better of its two 9X8s, the No. 93 car driven by Stoffel Vandoorne, into the top ten amid the late flurry of improvements.

IDEC Sport Fastest in LMP2; Ferrari Tops LMGT3 Again

Job van Uitert left it late to post the fastest time of the day in the LMP2 class aboard IDEC Sport’s No. 28 Oreca 07 Gibson.

The Dutchman reeled off a 3:35.344 with 19 minutes left on the clock to depose Mathias Beche, who had put the No. 14 TDS Racing car head of the class timesheets with a 3:35.519 less than 20 minutes prior.

Matthieu Vaxiviere was third-fastest aboard the No. 183 AF Corse Oreca that had paced the morning session with a 3:36.009, although that car remained third overall courtesy of the 3:35.526 set by the French driver earlier in the day.

Fourth for the session and the day overall was the No. 29 Forestier Racing by Panis car of Esteban Masson, while the top five was rounded off by the Duqueine Team entry driven by factory Porsche star Julien Andlauer.

McLaren Hypercar signing Laurens Vanthoor turned his first laps aboard the No. 22 United Autosports car that ended up eighth-fastest having sat out the morning session.

In the LMGT3 division, the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Francesco Castellacci made it a clean sweep of fastest times for the Prancing Horse.

Castellacci posted his best effort of 3:56.646 with 17 minutes to go, easily surpassing the best time set by Alessio Rovera in the morning session in the sister No. 21 car.

That was just nine thousandths of a second faster than the No. 91 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Timur Boguslavskiy, who led most of the session.

Next up were a pair of Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs, Jonny Edgar in the No. 33 TF Sport entry leading the 13 Autosport car of Matt Bell, while Parker Thompson was fifth-fastest aboard the No. 69 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

With the test day complete, track action at Le Mans will resume with the first official practice session on Wednesday June 10 at 2 p.m. local time (8 a.m. EST).

RESULTS: Test Session 2

Source: Sports Car 365