Porsche Penske Motorsport’s No.6 963 topped the second free practice session of Le Mans race week this evening, as the teams and drivers got their first taste of night running ahead of this weekend’s race. Crucially, it also allowed the drivers to complete their minimum required night laps early.
After an incident-packed FP1 and Qualifying Practice earlier in the day, Free Practice 2 was far less dramatic, with only a handful of minor incidents during the two hours of track time. The pace eased off, too. With no shoo tout spots to fight for, the drivers were clearly not tempted to take risks.
The quickest time in the session was set by Laurens Vanthoor, a 3m28.878s, just over 0.3s faster than the No.51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P which had its best time set halfway through the session by James Calado: a 3m29.225s. The sister FIA WEC full-season Penske Porsche, the No.5, was third ahead of the No. 2 Cadillac and the No. 7 Toyota fifth.
Elsewhere in the class, it was not a quiet session for HERTZ Team JOTA, which had its 963 stop at Mulsanne Corner, adding to its Qualifying Practice woes when the car required multiple resets due to a recurring hybrid failure alarm. However, the team completed 27 laps this evening, f inishing with the sixth-fastest time after a late improvement from Will Stevens (3m29.784s).