Toyota beats Ferrari to lead chaotic second Le Mans practice

Toyota strikes late in night practice

Toyota denied Ferrari the fastest time in Wednesday night’s second practice session for the Le Mans 24 Hours, as Kamui Kobayashi delivered a decisive late lap at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

That incident helped trigger a full-course yellow during a disrupted opening half-hour, with limited green-flag running. At roughly the same stage, the #44 Proton Oreca stopped on track, before trouble for the #22 United Autosports LMP2 caused further double yellow flags.

Ferrari leads before Toyota’s final answer

The result added another layer to Ferrari’s mixed evening, after the #83 entry failed to reach Hyperpole in qualifying. For more on that earlier session, read our report on how Alpine edged Cadillac in Le Mans qualifying as the #83 Ferrari missed Hyperpole.

A further full-course yellow arrived with 30 minutes remaining due to an incident at the second marshal post, before Dries Vanthoor spun the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 at the Esses, causing another stoppage.

Toyota sent the #7 back out late, and Kobayashi immediately made the opportunity count. First, he displaced the #83 Ferrari with a 3m26.329s, then improved by another two-tenths on his final flyer.

Class benchmarks set in LMP2 and LMGT3

The #83 AF Corse Ferrari finished second, with the #101 WTR Cadillac third despite an engine shutdown as Albuquerque rolled into the pitlane. Victor Martins took fourth in the #36 Alpine A424, ahead of the #12 Cadillac, the #19 Genesis, the #8 Toyota, the #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie and the two BMWs.

In LMP2, Louis Rousset put the #29 Forestier by Panis Oreca 07 fastest with a 3m33.645s, more than a second clear of Laurin Heinrich’s #4 CrowdStrike by APR Oreca. Matthieu Vaxiviere completed the class top three for AF Corse.

LMGT3 was led by Darren Leung in the #32 WRT BMW M4 GT3, whose 3m55.132s kept him ahead of Rui Andrade’s #61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Richard Lietz in Manthey’s #92 Porsche 911 GT3.