Aston Martin, together with The Heart of Racing Team, led the official test day ahead of the Le Mans 24 Hours next week, as Tom Gamble posted the quickest lap of both the afternoon session and the day’s total in the No. 007 Valkyrie.
Gamble’s best time stood at 3:26.293, recorded with just under two hours remaining in the three-hour session, placing him more than half a second clear of the rest of the field.
The British driver’s benchmark would stand as the benchmark for the day, although Brendon Hartley narrowed the gap to a mere 0.108 seconds with about 15 minutes left behind the wheel of the repaired No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid.
Following the morning incident involving Hartley’s co-driver Ryo Hirakawa and Algarve Pro Racing’s LMP2 entry driven by Jake Hughes, Toyota was able to complete repairs on the No. 8 car during the lunch break and prepared it for the afternoon session.
The No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R ended up as the third-quickest machine, with Norman Nato posting a best lap of 3:26.853.
Alpine’s duo of A424s completed the top five, as Ferdinand Habsburg in the No. 35 car and Le Mans debutant Victor Martins in the sister No. 36 machine both made late improvements, with Habsburg finishing 0.645 seconds off the pace.
The Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac, which had led the morning session, was sixth this time, driven by Jordan Taylor, while Filipe Albuquerque’s earlier time still stood as fifth fastest overall ahead of the second Alpine entry.
A late surge by Robin Frijns elevated the FIA World Endurance Championship leaders, the No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8, to seventh, dropping Kamui Kobayashi’s No. 7 Toyota to eighth and Alessandro Pier Guidi’s No. 51 Ferrari 499P to ninth.
That late push came not long after Pier Guidi’s spin and light contact with the barriers at Indianapolis, though the car appeared to suffer no substantial damage.
Paul-Loup Chatin made a late move to occupy tenth place aboard the quicker of the two newly launched Genesis GMR-001s, the No. 19 machine.
All eight Hypercar builders finished within roughly nine-tenths of a second of each other, with Peugeot narrowly missing a spot in the top ten as its two 9X8s, including Stoffel Vandoorne’s No. 93, fought to climb into the final positions amid the late wave of improvements.
IDEC Sport Fastest in LMP2; Ferrari Tops LMGT3 Again
Job van Uitert waited until the final moments to claim the overall quickest time in LMP2 aboard IDEC Sport’s No. 28 Oreca 07 Gibson.
The Dutchman raced to a 3:35.344 with 19 minutes remaining, eclipsing Mathias Beche, who had put the No. 14 TDS Racing car on top just under 20 minutes earlier with a 3:35.519.
Matthieu Vaxiviere was third fastest in the No. 183 AF Corse Oreca, which had led the morning session with a 3:36.009, and remained third overall thanks to a 3:35.526 set earlier in the day.
Fourth for the session and fourth overall on the day was Esteban Masson in the No. 29 Forestier Racing by Panis entry, while the fifth spot went to the Duqueine Team entry driven by Porsche factory driver Julien Andlauer.
Laurens Vanthoor, who has just joined the McLaren Hypercar project, completed his first laps in the No. 22 United Autosports machine, finishing eighth fastest after missing the morning session.
In LMGT3, the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, helmed by Francesco Castellacci, continued Ferrari’s dominance by setting the fastest lap, a time of 3:56.646 with 17 minutes remaining, well ahead of Alessio Rovera in the sister No. 21 car who had set the best in the morning session.
That time by Castellacci proved just 0.009 seconds quicker than Timur Boguslavskiy’s No. 91 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo, who led the majority of the session before the late improvements.
Next up were two Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs, with Jonny Edgar in the No. 33 TF Sport entry heading the 13 Autosport runner, while Parker Thompson posted the fifth-fastest time in the No. 69 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO.
With the test day complete, action at Le Mans will resume for the first official practice on Wednesday, June 10 at 2 p.m. local time (8 a.m. EST).
RESULTS: Test Session 2
