Le Mans 24h: Toyota remains on top in second practice

Both Toyota TS050 Hybrids were initially hovering around the 3m21s mark until Sebastien Buemi fired off a lap of 3m19.719s in the #8 car just before the two-hour mark. Buemi’s time was nine tenths clear of the #7 sister car, which was second-fastest courtesy of Mike Conway's late 3m20.611s.

Nathanael Berthon put the #3 Rebellion R-13 in third, 3.456s removed from Buemi’s benchmark. The lone #4 ByKolles entry was fourth in class, but slower than the leading LMP2 car, Tom Dillmann clocking a 3m27.304s at the start of the session.

Rebellion’s #1 car was stuck in the garage for most of the session to complete an engine change.

In LMP2, reigning FIA Formula 2 champion Nyck de Vries set a benchmark of 3m27.884s in the first hour in the #29 Racing Team Nederland Oreca 07.

It took until the final hour for the competition to catch up to the Dutchman, Will Stevens clocking a 3m28.011s in the #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca. But De Vries then put the Dutch team further out in front with a 3m27.185s in the yellow machine.

Formula E champion Antonio Felix da Costa was third in the #38 JOTA Sport Oreca, a further five tenths back from Stevens.

Aston Martin looked set to continue its clean sweep in GTE Pro until Michael Christensen overhauled Alex Lynn’s time to go fastest in the #92 Porsche RSR-19. Christensen set a time of 3m52.783s in the final 20 minutes of the session, bettering Lynn’s benchmark in the #97 Aston Martin Vantage by more than half a second.

Gianmaria Bruni was third in the #91 Porsche, followed by Toni Vilander in the #63 WeatherTech Racing Ferrari and James Calado in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari.

In GTE Am the #98 Aston long remained on top by virtue of Augusto Farfus’ early laptime of 3m55.167s, until Come Ledogar bettered the Brazilian’s time with just 10 minutes to go in the #61 Luzich Ferrari.

Ledogar was then overhauled himself by Matt Campbell in the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche. The Porsche works driver lowered the benchmark to 3m53.961s, which was the fifth-fastest time of any GTE car.

The session was red flagged twice for heavy crashes, each involving an IDEC Sport LMP2 car. Just before the one-hour mark Paul Lafargue hit the barriers coming out of the second chicane in the #28 IDEC Sport Oreca.

An hour later, teammate Dwight Merriman crashed heavily coming out of the Porsche Curves in the #17 sister car, meaning the French team is facing an uphill battle to get ready for Thursday afternoon’s first 45-minute qualifying session.

The fastest six cars in each class from that session will progress to Friday’s Hyperpole shootout.

Session results:

Pos.	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap	Int.
1	8	Sebastien Buemi  Kazuki Nakajima  Brendon Hartley	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	3'19.719
2	7	Mike Conway  Kamui Kobayashi  Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	3'20.611	0.892	0.892
3	3	Romain Dumas  Nathanaël Berthon  Louis Deletraz	Rebellion R13	LMP1	3'23.175	3.456	2.564
4	29	Frits van Eerd  Giedo van der Garde  Nyck de Vries	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'27.185	7.466	4.010
5	4	Tom Dillmann  Bruno Spengler  Oliver Webb	ENSO CLM P1/01	LMP1	3'27.304	7.585	0.119
6	37	Ho-Pin Tung  Gabriel Aubry  Will Stevens	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'28.011	8.292	0.707
7	38	Anthony Davidson  Antonio Felix da Costa  Roberto Gonzalez	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'28.450	8.731	0.439
8	33	Kenta Yamashita  Mark Patterson  Anders Fjordbach	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'29.064	9.345	0.614
9	26	Roman Rusinov  Jean-Eric Vergne  Mikkel Jensen	Aurus 01	LMP2	3'29.436	9.717	0.372
10	32	William Owen  Alex Brundle  Job Van Uitert	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'29.666	9.947	0.230
11	22	Philip Hanson  Filipe Albuquerque  Paul di Resta	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.171	10.452	0.505
12	31	Nico Jamin  Julien Canal  Matthieu Vaxivière	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.375	10.656	0.204
13	21	Juan Pablo Montoya  Timothe Buret  Memo Rojas	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.485	10.766	0.110
14	30	Jonathan Hirschi  Konstantin Tereshchenko  Tristan Gommendy	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.592	10.873	0.107
15	27	Henrik Hedman  Ben Hanley  Renger van der Zande	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'30.934	11.215	0.342
16	25	John Falb  Simon Trummer  Matthew McMurry	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'31.061	11.342	0.127
17	39	James Allen  Vincent Capillaire  Charles Milesi	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'31.365	11.646	0.304
18	36	André Negrão  Pierre Ragues  Thomas Laurent	Alpine A470	LMP2	3'31.649	11.930	0.284
19	35	Nobuya Yamanaka  Nick Foster  Roberto Merhi	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	3'32.725	13.006	1.076
20	16	Ryan Cullen  Oliver Jarvis  Nick Tandy	Aurus 01	LMP2	3'32.735	13.016	0.010
21	50	Tatiana Calderón  Sophia Floersch  Beitske Visser	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'32.915	13.196	0.180
22	28	Paul Lafargue  Paul Loup Chatin  Richard Bradley	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'32.995	13.276	0.080
23	47	Roberto Lacorte  Andrea Belicchi  Giorgio Sernagiotto	Dallara P217	LMP2	3'33.122	13.403	0.127
24	34	Jakub Smiechowski  Rene Binder  Matevos Isaakyan	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	3'34.991	15.272	1.869
25	42	Nicolas Lapierre  Antonin Borga  Alexandre Coigny	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.050	15.331	0.059
26	24	Garret Grist  Alex Kapadia  Anthony Wells	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.053	16.334	1.003
27	17	Dwight Merriman  Kyle Tilley  John Kennard	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.402	16.683	0.349
28	11	Adrien Tambay  Erik Maris  Christophe d'Ansembourg	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	3'51.919	32.200	15.517
29	92	Michael Christensen  Kevin Estre  Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	3'52.783	33.064	0.864
30	97	Maxime Martin  Alex Lynn  Harry Tincknell	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	3'53.346	33.627	0.563
31	91	Gianmaria Bruni  Richard Lietz  Frédéric Makowiecki	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	3'53.561	33.842	0.215
32	63	Cooper MacNeil  Toni Vilander  Jeffrey Segal	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	3'53.670	33.951	0.109
33	77	Christian Ried  Riccardo Pera  Matt Campbell	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'53.961	34.242	0.291
34	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi  James Calado  Daniel Serra	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	3'54.088	34.369	0.127
35	95	Nicki Thiim  Marco Sørensen  Richard Westbrook	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	3'54.501	34.782	0.413
36	71	Davide Rigon  Miguel Molina  Sam Bird	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	3'54.734	35.015	0.233
37	82	Olivier Pla  Sebastien Bourdais  Jules Gounon	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	3'54.776	35.057	0.042
38	61	Francesco Piovanetti  Oswaldo Negri Jr  Côme Ledogar	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'54.901	35.182	0.125
39	86	Michael Wainwright  Ben Barker  Andrew Watson	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'55.061	35.342	0.160
40	98	Paul Dalla Lana  Ross Gunn  Augusto Farfus	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'55.167	35.448	0.106
41	99	Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak  Lucas Légeret  Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'55.226	35.507	0.059
42	57	Ben Keating  Felipe Fraga  Jeroen Bleekemolen	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'55.507	35.788	0.281
43	83	François Perrodo  Emmanuel Collard  Nicklas Nielsen	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'55.670	35.951	0.163
44	54	Thomas Flohr  Francesco Castellacci  Giancarlo Fisichella	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'55.674	35.955	0.004
45	90	Salih Yoluc  Charlie Eastwood  Jonathan Adam	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'55.722	36.003	0.048
46	75	Rino Mastronardi  Matteo Cressoni  Andrea Piccini	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'56.352	36.633	0.630
47	56	Egidio Perfetti  Larry ten Voorde  Matteo Cairoli	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'56.462	36.743	0.110
48	88	Thomas Preining  Dominique Bastien  Adrien de Leener	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'56.501	36.782	0.039
49	60	Claudio Schiavoni  Sergio Pianezzola  Paolo Ruberti	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'57.196	37.477	0.695
50	70	Takeshi Kimura  Vincent Abril  Kei Cozzolino	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'57.633	37.914	0.437
51	55	Duncan Cameron  Aaron Scott  Matt Griffin	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'57.703	37.984	0.070
52	66	Richard Heistand  Max Root  Jan Magnussen	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'57.908	38.189	0.205
53	78	Horst Felbermayr Jr.  Michele Beretta  Max van Splunteren	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'58.056	38.337	0.148
54	85	Manuela Gostner  Rahel Frey  Michelle Gatting	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'58.713	38.994	0.657
55	62	Bonamy Grimes  Johnny Mowlem  Charles Hollings	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	4'00.462	40.743	1.749
56	72	Morris Chen  Tom Blomqvist  Marcos Gomes	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	4'00.694	40.975	0.232
57	89	Philippe Haezebrouck  Julien Piguet  Andreas Laskaratos	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	4'01.737	42.018	1.043
58	52	Christoph Ulrich  Steffen Gorig  Alexander West	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	4'04.604	44.885	2.867
59	1	Bruno Senna  Norman Nato  Gustavo Menezes	Rebellion R13	LMP1	no time