Having also set the fastest time in Friday’s second practice, Fuoco’s factory Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar carried on where it left off on Saturday morning with a lap of 1m31.272s that was not surpassed before Paul di Resta beached the #94 Peugeot 9X8 LMH in the gravel at the Rivazza left-hander in the final minutes of the hour-long session.
Fuoco’s time proved 0.034s quicker than Vanthoor’s WRT-run #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh, with Rene Rast following his BMW stablemate in third, three tenths further back aboard the #20 example.
Robert Shwartzman in the customer AF Corse-run #83 Ferrari that topped the times in opening practice in Yifei Ye’s hands took fourth, underlining the Prancing Horse’s strong start to its home WEC round.
The yellow 499P outpaced the best of the Porsche 963 LMDhs driven by Matt Campbell, who was 0.433s behind Fuoco’s benchmark time aboard the #5 Penske Porsche Motorsport machine.
A scrappy session for Alessandro Pier Guidi aboard the factory #51 Ferrari yielded sixth position, the Italian surviving a spin at the Villeneuve chicane and a trip into the gravel at Rivazza to post a best time of 1m31.715s.
That put him ahead of the leading Toyota GR010 HYBRID LMH of Brendon Hartley, Callum Ilott’s Jota Porsche 963 and Kamui Kobayashi in the second Toyota.
Kevin Estre’s #6 PPM Porsche completed the top 10, leading the two heavily-revised Peugeots that are competing in 2024-spec for the first time this weekend and the two Alpine A424 LMDhs.
#15 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello, Marco Wittmann
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Aston Martin broke the Corvette stranglehold on the GT3 times as Marco Sorensen headed the way in his D’Station Racing Vantage.
The Dane’s 1m42.474s was enough to put him 0.518s ahead of Alex Riberas in the similar Heart of Racing machine.
Augusto Farfus moved up to third in the best of the WRT-run BMW M4s shortly before the red flag to fall 0.036s shy of snatching second spot, while Alexander Malykhin beat Marino Sato’s United Autosports McLaren 720S Evo into fourth aboard his Manthey PureRxcing Porsche 911 RSR.