BMW, Porsche and Cadillac ended up within two hundredths of each other at the top of the times in second free practice for Sunday’s World Endurance Championship round at Fuji.
Dries Vanthoor led the way for the WRT BMW team from Porsche driver Matt Campbell and Cadillac’s Alex Lynn in the 90-minute FP2 session on Friday afternoon.
Vanthoor posted a 1m29.577s during the opening minutes of the session in the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh before Campbell got down to a 1m29.586s in the #5 Penske-run factory Porsche 963 LMDh to end up just nine thousandths in arrears.
Lynn then lapped the 2.84-mile Fuji Speedway in 1m29.592s aboard the solo Ganassi Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh to end up 0.15s off the pace.
The leading contenders in FP2 all set their times at the beginning of the session when they were on fresh tyres, Vanthoor’s session best representing an improvement of almost exactly a second over the time set by his brother Laurens for Porsche that took top spot in FP1.
Ferrari ended up fourth with the #83 AF Corse-run customer entry, Robert Kubica getting down to a 1m29.904s in the 499P Le Mans Hypercar that won last time out in the WEC at Austin earlier this month.
Ryo Hirakawa claimed fifth on home ground for Toyota with a 1m29.923s aboard the #8 GR010 HYBRID LMH.
#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 — Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries
Photo by: Andreas Beil
BMW had two cars in the top six, Robin Frijns ending up on a 1m29.956s in the second of the M Hybrids.
Antonio Giovinazzi took seventh spot for the factory Ferrari squad as the last driver to break 1m30s with a 1m29.975s.
Oliver Rasmussen in the #38 Porsche run by the privateer Jota team claimed eighth ahead of the second Toyota in which Kamui Kobayashi set the time.
The top 10 was rounded out by the second of the Penske Porsches in which Kevin Estre was still three tenths up on team-mate Vanthoor’s morning best.
Alpine took 11th and 13th positions with its pair of Signatech A424 LMDhs, Charles Milesi ending up little more than a tenth ahead of Matthieu Vaxiviere.
Best of the Peugeot 9X8 2024 LMHs was the #93 car in which Mikkel Jensen took 14th spot as the last driver within a second of the pace.
The solo Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63 LMDh was down 17th in Daniil Kvyat’s hands.
#55 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3: Francois Heriau, Simon Mann, Alessio Rovera
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Alessio Rovera jumped to the top of the charts in LMGT3 in the fastest of the AF Corse-run Ferrari 296 GT3s, the factory driver’s 1m40.682s a couple of tenths faster than bronze-rated Hiroshi Koizumi in the #82 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
The local driver’s 1m40.851s set at the start of the session still stood as second best despite some late improvements.
Franck Perera got down to a 1m40.860s in the Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 to take third.
Track action at Fuji resumes on Saturday with a final, hour-long session of free practice beginning at 10:20 local time before qualifying kicks off at 14:20.