Buemi Paces Night Practice; Incidents for WRT, JOTA

Sebastien Buemi set the pace in the Wednesday night practice session ahead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which saw incidents for both BMW M Team WRT and Hertz Team JOTA.

Buemi steered the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid to a best lap of 3:27.474, going 0.524 seconds clear of the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Robert Kubica.

The yellow-liveried Ferrari is one of two Hypercar entries from the Prancing Horse that is due to serve a ten-second penalty during the opening pitstop of the race on Saturday.

Both the No. 83 and No. 50 car were given similar penalties for “not respecting the pit lane procedure.”

The No. 6 Porsche 963 ended Wednesday evening’s two-hour session in third place with Kevin Estre at the wheel, ahead of the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA-entered example of Norman Nato.

Nato’s co-driver Callum Ilott brought out a red flag with moments to spare when he crashed the privateer Porsche approaching Tertre Rouge, resulting in front end damage.

Elsewhere in the Hypercar class, Dries Vanthoor also went off aboard the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8 and hit the barrier at Indianapolis with just under 20 minutes remaining.

The Belgian, who set the pace in qualifying practice earlier on Wednesday, drove the car back to the pits unaided.

Nicolas Lapierre rounded out the top five with a late flyer behind the wheel of the No. 36 Alpine A424, while the quickest of the Cadillac V-Series.Rs slotted into sixth in the hands of Renger van der Zande.

The second Alpine picked up seventh, with Alessandro Pier Guidi eighth aboard the No. 51 Ferrari.

The top ten was completed by the No. 7 Toyota and the No. 5 Porsche driven by Matt Campbell.

The LMP2 class was led by the No. 37 Cool Racing Oreca 07 Gibson, with Malthe Jakobsen’s 3:35.386 lap 1.165 seconds quicker than United Autosport’s Oliver Jarvis.

Scott Huffaker led Pro-Am and went third overall in the LMP2 ranks aboard the No. 65 Panis Racing Oreca, ahead of Duqueine Team’s James Allen and AF Corse driver Ben Barnicoat.

Dennis Olsen went quickest in the No. 88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT by posting a 3:58.689.

In the process, he outpaced the No. 777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo by 0.027 seconds.

Augusto Farfus took third aboard the No. 31 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3, a mere 0.001 seconds back.

Track action on Thursday kicks off with the third Free Practice session, starting at 3 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Free Practice 2