Le Mans 24 Hours - Ferrari ready for Hyperpole after one-two finish in FP3

The third free practice session of the 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours saw a number of objectives set for Thursday afternoon. With the heat still above la Sarthe region (nearly 30°), preparation for the Hyperpole was on the minds of the qualifed teams, while others focused their program on the race.

At the top of the timesheets were the Ferrari 499P #50 of Antonio Fuoco - Miguel Molina - Nicklas Nielsen and #51 of Antonio Giovinazzi - James Calado - Alessandro Pier Guidi, ahead of the two Toyota GR010 #7 of Kamui Kobayashi - Mike Conway - José Maria Lopez and the #8 of Sébastien Buemi - Brendon Hartley - Ryo Hirakawa.

Kamui Kobayashi led for a long time with a time of 3'27"580, before Antonio Fuoco stole the show just over ten minutes from the chequered flag with a time of 3'26"579. Shortly afterwards, it was Antonio Giovinazzi who gave Ferrari a one-two finish, 0"434 behind his team-mate. The two Toyota GR010s were relegated to 1" and 1"2. After problems with its hybrid system yesterday, the #38 Porsche 963 - Hertz Team JOTA has been back on track since the night session, with Antonio Felix da Costa placing the German Hypercar in the top 5 ahead of the first Porsche 963 - Porsche Penske Motorsport, with the #75 of Felipe Nasr - Mathieu Jaminet - Nick Tandy.

Next up was the n°311 Cadillac V-Series.R - Action Express Racing driven by Jack Aitken, who set the car's best time of 3'28"277, and the other two Porsches 963 - Porsche Penske Motorsport cars, with the #5 of Frédéric Makowiecki - Michael Christensen - Dane Cameron ahead of the #6 of Laurens Vanthoor - Kévin Estre - André Lotterer.

The latter suffered cooling problems during the session, but was finally able to return to the track after an intervention in the Porsche Penske box.

The first Peugeot 9X8, the #93 of Paul di Resta - Jean-Eric Vergne - Mikkel Jensen, was 10th, ahead of the first Cadillac n°3 - Cadillac Racing of Sébastien Bourdais - Renger van der Zande - Scott Dixon.

In the LMP2 category, the times remained mainly insignificant, with only the Oreca 07 #28 - JOTA raising the tempo with a best lap of 3'34"071. The Oreca 07 #14 - Nielsen Racing followed at over three seconds, with the LMP2 Pro-Am benchmark, despite Rodrigo Sales going off track.

Also in the category, Ferdinand Habsburg's Oreca 07 #31 - Team WRT made contact at Indianapolis. Another trouble, this time in the gravel trap at Arnage for the #65 - Panis Racing, with Manuel Maldonado at the wheel.

AF Corse dominated the GTE Am category with the Ferrari 488 #54 - Francesco Castelleacci - Davide Rigon - Thomas Flohr in 3'53"681. The #86 Porsche 911 RSR - GR Racing and the #60 Porsche 911 RSR - Iron Lynx rounded out the top 3. The #777 - D'Station Racing Aston Martin, which was involved in an accident yesterday, was unable to run following a chassis change.

The #24 Chevrolet Camaro Nascar - Hendrick Motorsports didn't cover many laps as announced by the team before the session, focusing on race preparation. The American once again finished ahead of the GTE field in 3'52"752.

Full classification is HERE