Cadillac Tops Close FP3 as Ferrari, Aston Martin Also Star

Cadillac driver Will Stevens set the pace in final practice ahead of this weekend’s 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps FIA World Endurance Championship round as the top-four cars were separated by just a tenth of a second.

Stevens clocked the fastest lap early in the session, posting a 2:02.379 aboard the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R to finish up 0.023 seconds faster than Robert Kubica in the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P. However, Stevens’ time was around half a second slower than Jules Gounon’s leading effort in FP2 on Thursday.

Aston Martin continued to show its strong form across the Spa practice sessions as Harry Tincknell was third fastest in the No. 007 Valkyrie with a 2:02.469, while the second Cadillac of Jack Aitken posted a 2:02.483 to complete the evenly-matched top-four.

Fifth and sixth positions were occupied by the two factory Ferrari 499Ps, Antonio Giovinazzi in the No. 51 going two tenths faster than Antonio Fuoco in the No. 50 machine.

The best of the Peugeot 9X8s was seventh fastest, the No. 93 car of Stoffel Vandoorne, on a 2:02.886, while the sister car occupied ninth spot thanks to Malthe Jakobsen’s 2:03.009.

Sandwiched between the Peugeots was another French machine, the No. 35 Alpine A424 of Charles Milesi, who posted a 2:02.917, while the other Alpine of Gounon rounded out a top-ten that was split by just seven tenths of a second.

Genesis driver Mathieu Jaminet occupied 11th spot in the best of the GMR-001s, while it was a low-key session for the Toyota and WRT BMW squads.

The best of the Toyota TR010 Hybrids was the No. 8 car of Brendon Hartley in 13th spot with a 2:03.179, while neither BMW M Hybrid V8 crew set a truly representative lap time in the hour-long session.

A late full-course yellow to retrieve Richard Lietz’s stricken No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo that was fifth in the LMGT3 timesheet when it stopped at Bruxelles limited the potential for fast times in the closing minutes of FP3.

There were also two brief FCY periods earlier in the session to retrieve debris from the track.

The times were equally close at the summit of the LMGT3 leaderboard with the pair of Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evos split by just 0.004 seconds at the head of the timesheets.

Finn Gehrsitz was fractionally quicker of the two in the No. 58 entry with a 2:17.068 while Tom Fleming in the No. 10 car that suffered late trouble at Imola which denied the team victory on its WEC debut had to settle for second spot.

Third fastest was the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Simon Mann with a 2:17.709 but the rest of the field were over a second adrift of the pacesetting McLarens.

Attention now turns to qualifying with the first session for LMGT3 competitors due to get under way at 2:30 p.m. CEST (8:30 a.m. EST) before the Hypercar contenders are scheduled to emerge at 3:20 p.m. CEST (9:20 a.m. EST).

RESULTS: Free Practice 3