Hartley Leads Final Portimao Practice

Brendon Hartley led the third and final Free Practice session for the 6 Hours of Portimao by narrowly outpacing Ferrari driver James Calado.

Hartley steered the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid to a best lap of 1:31.795 during the 60-minute session on Saturday morning.

This allowed the New Zealander to stay ahead of the No. 51 Ferrari 499P by a margin of 0.189 seconds, while Kamui Kobayashi clocked the third fastest time aboard the No. 7 Toyota.

This was despite a minor incident earlier in the session for the Japanese driver in which he spun at Turn 7 after light contact with the No. 88 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Ryan Hardwick.

Nico Mueller came fourth in the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8, ahead of the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R of Richard Westbrook and the No. 4 Vanwall Vandervell 680 Gibson driven by Tom Dillmann.

The overall top ten was completed by the No. 50 Ferrari driven by Antonio Fuoco, the pair of Porsche 963s and the No. 93 Peugeot.

In LMP2, Vector Sport led the class for the second consecutive session. Gabriel Aubry set a fastest lap of 1:34.265 aboard the No. 10 Oreca 07 Gibson.

Team WRT’s Louis Deletraz took second place by a gap of just 0.002 seconds, with the Belgian squad’s second car third in the hands of Robin Frijns.

Yifei Ye set the fourth fastest time for Hertz Team JOTA, while United Autosports completed the top five with the No. 22 car in the hands of Phil Hanson.

Ferrari led a 1-2 in GTE-Am, with Davide Rigon posting a 1:40.426 aboard the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, leading the No. 83 car in the hands of Alessio Rovera.

Michelle Gatting completed the top three in the No. 85 Iron Dames Porsche.

The session was interrupted by a sole red flag halfway through, caused by a collision between Alpine’s Memo Rojas and the No. 94 Peugeot driven by Gustavo Menezes.

The collision, which sent Rojas into a spin at turn 5, caused a left rear puncture to the No. 35 Alpine, after which the Mexican driver began dropping bodywork on track before coming to a halt.

Moments earlier, a spin for Rojas’ teammate Julien Canal at the same corner resulted in a minor collision between the No. 85 Porsche piloted by Sarah Bovy and David Heinemeier Hansson’s No. 28 JOTA Oreca.

Qualifying for the 6 Hours of Portimao is set to kick off at 3:30 p.m local time (10:30 a.m ET).

RESULTS: Free Practice 3