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Kamui Kobayashi puts Toyota ahead in free practice

Kamui Kobayashi was the fastest in free practice at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the No. 050 Toyota TS7 Hybrid. Porsche has set itself the benchmark time in GTE Pro.

Published on 12/06/2019 à 20:07

Pierre Tassel

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Kamui Kobayashi puts Toyota ahead in free practice

The free practice session of 24 Hours of Le Mans 2019 saw the domination of Toyota TS050 Hybrid n°7 Kobayashi – Lopez – Conway, at the end of the first four hours of driving of the Le Mans week.

On a drying track and in the last minute, Kamui Kobayashi greatly improved the benchmark previously established by Stoffel Vandoorne (BR1 n°11 – SMP Racing) in 3'19"931, by completing a lap of the Le Mans route in 3'18″091, pushing the Belgian back to 1″840.

 

 

The trio Menezes – Laurent – ​​Berthon (R13 n°3 – Rebellion Racing), long leader since the first half of the session, finished these free practices in third position at 1″869. The second Toyota n°8 ofAlonso - Buemi – Nakajima finished 4th at 2″850, the top 5 being completed by the second R13 n°1 – Rebellion Racing of Senna – Lotterer – Jani, clocked at 3″1.

Chatin sets the pace

The LM P2 category saw Paul-Loup Chatin place the #07 Oreca 38 – IDEC Sport in first position with a best time achieved shortly before the last ten minutes of the session in 3'28″363. The Frenchman is 0″367 ahead of the No. 07 Oreca 31 – DragonSpeed ​​of Davidson – Gonzalez – Maldonado and the No. 01 Aurus 26 – G-Drive Racing of Vergne – Rusinov – Van Uitert.

Porsche dominates in GTE

Both in Pro and Am, the Porsche 911 RSRs were the fastest in these free tests. Very quickly, the No. 92, winner in 2018 in Sarthe with the Estre – Christensen – Vanthoor trio, took the lead in 3'52″149, three tenths ahead of the No. 94 sister car, second thanks to the French Mathieu Jaminet.

Sam Bird finished third with the Ferrari 488 GTE n°71 – AF Corse by more than five tenths. The best Ford GT, the No. 66 of Johnson – Mücke – Pla took 4th place at 0″629 ahead of the second Ferrari No. 51 – AF Corse of Calado – Pier Guidi – Serra.

The first BMW M8 No. 82 – BMW Team MTEK of Farfus – Felix da Costa – Krohn is in sixth place, eight tenths behind. You have to go down to 9th row to find any trace of the first Corvette C7.R n°63 of Magnussen – Garcia – Rockenfeller, and in 10th for the first Aston Martin Vantage n°95 by Thiim – Sorensen – Turner.

In GTE Am, the Andlauer – Campbell – Ried team (Porsche 911 RSR n°77 – Dempdey-Proton Racing) finished in the lead with a best time of 3'55″304.

Among the incidents of the session, note the spin of the #217 Dallara P29 – Team Racing Nederland after the first chicane, the brief stop in the Mulsanne straight of the #217 Ligier JS P49 – ARC Bratislava or the minor exit of Jonathan Bomarito (Ford GT n°67).

 

 

 

 

The session was interrupted for a long time in its first part (nearly three-quarters of an hour) after Tracy Krohn's accident (Porsche 911 RSR n°99 – Dempsey-Proton Racing) in the Mulsanne straight. Despite the violence of the exit, the American pilot is doing well as confirmed by the ACO, but was taken to hospital for additional examinations.

A decision will be made tomorrow by the team on the continuation of the entry of the No. 99 Porsche after further information on the state of health of Tracy Krohn.

 

 

 

 

The first qualifying session will begin at 22 p.m., and will be followed live via our live-text.

 

 

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