Brendon Hartley ensured a practice clean sweep for Toyota with a 1m31.795s lap of the Algarve International Circuit aboard the #8 machine, but was only 0.189s clear of James Calado in the #51 Ferrari 499P LMH.
The Briton’s 1m31.984s had briefly put his AF Corse-run entry 0.053s ahead of Hartley, before the three-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner responded to reinstate his advantage.
Kamui Kobayashi was 0.278s slower than Hartley in the sister #7 Toyota, but over half a second clear of the #94 Peugeot 9X8 LMH which managed a best time of 1m32.738s in Nico Muller’s hands.
The #94 machine was later embroiled in an incident at the Turn 5 hairpin when Gustavo Menezes dived inside Memo Rojas’s Signatech-run Alpine ORECA-Gibson 07 and tapped the Mexican into a spin.
Rojas suffered a left-rear puncture, which left him stranded on track and caused a red flag that was only lifted with 11 minutes remaining in the 60-minute session. Menezes was placed under investigation.
Shortly before the stoppage, Richard Westbrook had moved the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh up to fifth with a 1m32.818s that demoted Tom Dillmann’s Vanwall Vandervell 680 LMH.
The #51 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco languished 0.996s behind Calado in seventh, but slotted in ahead of the two Penske Porsche Motorsport 963 LMDhs.
#51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
A late effort following the red flag by Laurens Vanthoor lifted his #6 entry ahead of team-mate Fred Makowiecki.
Mikkel Jensen completed the top 10 aboard the #93 Peugeot as Romain Dumas in the Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 rounded out the Hypercar field, 2.105s in arrears.
In LMP2, Gabriel Aubry once again headed the times in the Vector Sport ORECA, the FP2 pace-setter usurping the two WRT entries that had previously occupied the top two positions.
His 1m34.265s lap was just 0.002s faster than Louis Deletraz’s #41 WRT entry, with Robin Frijns aboard the #31 car 0.232s behind in third.
Ahead of its final scheduled LMP2 outing before moving into the Hypercar class from Spa, Ye Yifei put the #48 Jota ORECA fourth while #22 United Autosports driver Phil Hanson pipped Mirko Bortolotti’s #63 Prema entry to fifth by 0.003s.
Meanwhile, Ferrari continued to lead the way in GTE Am as Davide Rigon put the #54 AF Corse 488 EVO GTE at the head of the pile on a 1m40.426s.
His closest challenger was stablemate Alessio Rovera in the #83 machine, which trailed by 0.364s.
Michelle Gatting was third-fastest in the best of the Porsches, the Dane whisking her Iron Dames 911 RSR-19 around 0.473s slower.
