Genesis Tops Session for First Time as Jaminet Heads FP2

Genesis Magma Racing topped the timesheets in an FIA World Endurance Championship session for the first time after Mathieu Jaminet went fastest in second practice for the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo.

The South Korean manufacturer is making its Hypercar debut this season and Jaminet’s 1:24.271 effort aboard the No. 19 Genesis GMR-001 came during an early qualifying sim run.

Jaminet ended up being just 0.060 seconds faster than the No. 009 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyrie of Marco Sorensen at the head of the leaderboard.

Third was FP1 pacesetter Harry Tincknell in the second of the Astons on a 1:24.487, while the pair of Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.Rs were next up.

Jack Aitken managed a 1:24.685 in the No. 38 machine to go fractionally quicker than Will Stevens in the No. 12 entry.

The top-six was then rounded out by the pick of the Alpine A424s, the No. 35 car of Charles Milesi, who clocked a 1:24.755.

Seventh quickest was the best of the trio of Ferrari 499Ps, the No. 83 AF Corse satellite car of Robert Kubica on a 1:24.871.

Eighth place went to the No. 15 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor on a 1:24.912, with the next five cars all within a tenth of this time.

Best of that quartet was the second of the Alpines, the No. 36 of Victor Martins, while the top-ten was completed by the No. 50 factory Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco.

Also in the 1:24.9s bracket was the second of the BMWs and also the pick of the Peugeot 9X8s, the No. 94 car of Malthe Jakobsen.

It was another session in which all of the leading times were set in the opening third of the 90 minutes and Toyota again did not feature towards the summit of the timesheet.

The best of the Toyota TR010 Hybrids was the No. 7 car of Kamui Kobayashi, who managed a 1:25.134 in 14th place as the entire 17-strong Hypercar field was separated by fewer than 1.3 seconds.

There were no major incidents at all during the session as teams were able to get plenty of laps around the Interlagos track.

It was also tight in the LMGT3 ranks with the fastest three cars split by less than a tenth as the pair of Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3s led the way.

Clemens Schmid set the pace aboard the No. 87 Lexus with a 1:34.498, while Hadrien David was just 0.037 seconds slower in the sister No. 78 machine.

The tightly-matched top trio was completed by the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Kobe Pauwels, who is making just his second WEC outing this weekend.

Fourth fastest was the No. 58 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Finn Gehrsitz on a 1:34.851, while the second Aston — the No. 27 car of Zacharie Robichon — was fifth having clocked a 1:34.960.

The No. 91 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo bucked the trend and was a frontrunner to improve in the final third of the session, with Timur Boguslavskiy setting a 1:35.336 to go sixth.

There is due to be one further hour of practice at Interlagos on Saturday at 10:10 a.m. local time (9:10 a.m. EST) before attention then turns to qualifying.

RESULTS: Free Practice 2