WEC-EL3: Porsche stays on the pace in Austin

The Porsche auront dominé les trois séances d’essais des 6 Heures du Circuit des Amériques à Austin (Texas). Brendon Hartley signed the best lap in the tests at the wheel of the #919 17 Hybrid with a time of 1'46"435 achieved in the last session, ahead of the sister car #3 driven by 18 tenths by Neel jani.

The Audis still seem to be struggling to keep up with the pace, the #8 of Loïc duval pointing at one second from the reference, while the n°7 led by Andre Lotterer s’est classé à 1 »7. Les Toyota accusent plus de 2 secondes de retard.

Paul Loup Chatin achieved the best time of the session in LMP2 with a time of 1'55"874 achieved at the wheel of theAlpine A450b, but it is still 3 tenths off the time achieved by Sam bird on the #2 G-Drive Racing Ligier JS P26 in the second session. Nicolas lapierre ranked a few thousandths behind the A450b on the KCMG Oreca 05.

Porsche also maintains control in GTE Pro, the No. 911 92 RSR driven by patrick pilet finishing the session with a time of 2’05”134, ahead of the Ferrari n°71 AF Corse led by Gianna Bruni which precedes the second Porsche from the Team Manthey team. Peter Lamy was the fastest of the GTE Ams with the #8 Vantage V98 credited with a time of 2'06"639, but it was the #72 SMP Racing Ferrari which remained the fastest in the tests.

Qualifying for the 6 Hours of the Circuit of the Americas will be contested this evening from 0:45 a.m. (French time).