Taking over the #51 Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar that Alessandro Pier Guidi drove to second in Hyperpole, Calado whisked to a time of 3m27.275s shortly before Jean-Eric Vergne’s #93 Peugeot 9X8 LMH brought out the red flags when it stopped between the two Mulsanne Chicanes.
The one-hour session was restarted with 20 minutes still on the clock, but there were few noteworthy improvements thereafter as Calado’s benchmark time held.
Calado was 1.003s faster than Esteban Gutierrez in the Le Mans-only #709 Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 that will start the World Endurance Championship blue riband from 14th.
Gutierrez was in turn 0.162s faster than the Jota Porsche 963 LMDh campaigned by Will Stevens, which missed qualifying on Wednesday due to an electronic problem.
Kevin Estre improved to fourth after the red flag in the best of the factory Penske-run Porsches, his #6 machine usurping the Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Alexander Sims.
Jose Maria Lopez completed the top six in the leading Toyota GR010 HYBRID, 1.648s down on Calado, while a late effort from polesitter Antonio Fuoco in the second Ferrari secured him seventh in the #50 machine that didn’t set a time prior to the stoppage.
Vergne was shuffled back to eighth ahead of Michael Christensen’s #5 Penske Porsche as Richard Westbrook completed the top 10 in WEC full-season Ganassi Cadillac.
Tom Dillmann’s early effort aboard the Vanwall Vandervell 680 slotted him into 11th, ahead of Romain Dumas in the second Glickenhaus and Mathieu Jaminet’s #75 Porsche.
#75 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 of Felipe Nasr, Mathieu Jaminet, Nick Tandy
Photo by: Marc Fleury
The #7 Toyota likewise only appeared in the final third of the session and ended up 14th in Sebastien Buemi’s hands ahead of the #93 Peugeot campaigned by Loic Duval.
After a burst high pressure fuel hose caused a fire in Hyperpole, the #3 Ganassi Cadillac didn’t turn a lap.
The LMP2 pace was set by Dries Vanthoor’s TF Sport-run Racing Team Turkey ORECA-Gibson 07 as the BMW factory driver stormed to the top of the timesheets.
Vanthoor logged a 3m36.229s aboard the pro-am entry to beat Job van Uitert by 0.421s in the ORECA fielded by Panis Racing.
After a late effort from Prema’s Mirko Bortolotti secured the fastest time in Wednesday evening’s FP2 session, the Lamborghini factory driver repeated the trick to move into third in the dying minutes of the session.
That demoted Tom Blomqvist to fourth in the #23 United Autosport entry, as Ben Barnicoat (AF Corse) and Pietro Fittipaldi’s pole-contending Jota machine rounded out the top six.
LMP2 polewinners IDEC Sport ended up 14th with Laurents Horr setting its best time.
#66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari 488 GTE EVO of Thomas Neubauer, Louis Prette, Giacomo Petrobelli
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz
An early lap from Thomas Neubauer in the repaired JMW Motorsport Ferrari 488 GTE Evo secured the top spot in GTE Am.
The Frenchman, in the car crashed during opening practice by Louis Prette, beat Ferrari factory driver Daniel Serra’s Kessel example to the top spot by 0.104s with a 3m52.965s lap.
Alessio Picariello shuffled up the order into third in the closing stages aboard his Iron Lynx Porsche 911 RSR-19 ahead of fellow late improver Jan Heylen’s Proton example, as polewinner Corvette Racing’s works-entered C8.R ended up sixth with Nicolas Varrone at the wheel.