The #708 Glickenhaus 007 LMH driven by Romain Dumas posted the fastest time of Wednesday’s two-hour night practice session for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The Frenchman’s time, which came around 20 minutes after the start of the session, will be encouraging to the US squad as they attempt to take on the pair of works Toyotas over 24 hours.
Kamui Kobayashi was second-quickest in the #7 Toyota with a 3:29.164, which he posted right at the end of the session at midnight. Brendon Hartley was third-fastest in the #8 machin, one tenth further back.
Night laps required to start the race
Each of the 186 drivers in the 62-car field must complete at least five timed laps during Le Mans night practice on Wednesday or Thursday – one of which crossing the start/finish line.
The minimum requirement is a rule designed to familiarise drivers with night running ahead of Saturday’s race. Exceptions can be made if drivers are unable to complete their laps due to force majeure
Issues cost three cars night running
Eight drivers in the field were unable to complete their night laps, almost all of whom due to crash damage suffered earlier on Wednesday.
Fabio Scherer was at the wheel of the #43 Inter Europol Competition LMP2 car as its front suspension broke at the Ford Chicane. The Swiss driver only completed one lap.
The #45 Algarve Pro Racing entry of René Binder, James Allen and Steven Thomas crashed in the earlier free practice session and required a replacement chassis. The team were busy building up the new tub and should be ready to complete their night running on Thursday.
Another team to miss out on night practice was the #93 Proton Competition Porsche crew of Zacharie Robichon, Matt Campbell and Michael Fassbender after Fassbender crashed in qualifying.
Corvette top in GTE Pro, Porsches one-two in GTE Am
The #63 Corvette Racing C8.R went fastest in night practice following Nicky Catsburg’s 3:53.492. Catsburg’s time was just 0.177 seconds ahead of the second-quickest car in the session, the #91 Porsche 911 RSR-19 driven by Frédéric Mackowiecki.
The second Corvette went third-fastest with a quickest lap of 3:53.699. The fastest Ferrari was back in fourth place, with Felipe Fraga’s time of 3:54.019 in the #74 Riley Motorsports 488 GTE.
Porsche finished first and second fastest in GTE Am, with Project 1 topping the time sheets and Dempsey-Proton Racing in second.
WRT head the field in LMP2
WRT once again asserted its dominance on the LMP2 field with the fastest time of 3:33.119 by René Rast. Second-quickest was the #22 United Autosports USA car, followed by the #32 Team WRT entry in third.
A full list of times can be found here.
The action continues with FP3 on Thursday at 3pm, Hyperpole at 7pm and FP4 at 10pm (all times local). Check out the full list of session times on our race page.