The Pole’s Prema Orlen Team Oreca-Gibson lapped the 3.74-mile course in 1min49.084sec, 0.126sec faster than Matthieu Vaxiviere’s Alpine A480 Hypercar, which was two tenths ahead of the Charles Milesi-piloted Richard Mille Racing Oreca.
AF Corse made it three Oreca LMP2 cars in the top four, as it edged by just 0.001sec the Glickenhaus 007 Hypercar driven by Romain Dumas.
The fastest of the two Toyota GR010 Hybrid Hypercars, the #7 which set the pace in the morning’s rain-shortened session, was seventh thanks to Jose Maria Lopez while the sister #8 car was 10th.
Moving into the Top 10 was Team Penske’s LMP2 Oreca entry to be shared by Dane Cameron, Felipe Nasr and Emmanuel Collard. They wound up just behind United Autosports’ fastest entry, and 0.9sec off the ultimate pace.
The Porsche GT team’s pair of 911 RSR-19s remained top of the GTE Pro entries, Kevin Estre an unusual half-a-second quicker than Gianmaria Bruni.
As per this morning, the works Porsche’s closest opposition came from the lone Corvette C8.R of Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner which had a handy six-tenth margin over two AF Corse Ferrari 488s of Alessandro Pier Guidi/James Calado and Miguel Molina/Antonio Fuoco.
Another Ferrari, the Iron Lynx #60 car, topped the GTE Am times thanks to ex-F1 winner Giancarlo Fisichella, just a few hundredths in front of Team Project 1’s Porsche 911 RSR-19 and the Iron Dames Ferrari.
Weather allowing, the Prologue recommences Sunday morning with 3hr30min session followed by a 3hr session.
