Hartley Quickest in Saturday Morning Practice

Brendon Hartley continued Toyota Gazoo Racing’s form in the buildup to the 6 Hours of Fuji by topping the third and final Free Practice session with the fastest lap of the weekend so far.

Hartley posted a time of  1:29.865 behind the wheel of the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid, beating Kamui Kobayashi’s Friday benchmark by a margin of 0.083 seconds.

The lead gap in the 60-minute FP3 was six-tenths of a second, with No. 93 Peugeot driver Jean-Eric Vergne being Hartley’s closest challenger in the Hypercar field.

Vergne shaved almost seven-tenths off Peugeot’s best time of the event so far as the French manufacturer denied Toyota a third consecutive one-two in Free Practice.

No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 ended up third in the hands of Loic Duval, who produced a 1:30.828.

Alpine Elf Team sat one second off the pace in fourth with its non-hybrid LMP1 car driven by Matthieu Vaxiviere, while Kobayashi rounded out the five-car Hypercar order in the No. 7 Toyota with a time of 1:31.532.

JOTA remained at the top of the LMP2 timing charts after the British team’s Oreca 07 Gibsons ran first and second on Friday.

Antonio Felix da Costa submitted an early 1:31.822 and led the session by three-tenths over Vector Sport’s Sebastien Bourdais.

Team WRT’s No. 31 Oreca, Richard Mille Racing Team and the No. 28 JOTA machine rounded out the top five in class.

Porsche interrupted Ferrari’s strong start to the weekend by beating the Italian manufacturer in FP3.

The No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo led both sessions on Friday through James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi respectively, but the No. 91 Porsche 911 RSR-19 moved ahead in the last practice session before qualifying.

A 1:36.883 attempt from Gianmaria Bruni set the 24 Hours of Le Mans class-winning Porsche 0.226 seconds clear of the No. 51 Ferrari with Calado at the helm.

The second factory AF Corse Ferrari came through in third, ahead of the No. 64 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R.

A Porsche also led the way in GTE-Am as Team Project 1 registered a one-two that was led by the Inception Racing-backed No. 56 car.

Ben Barnicoat’s time of 1:38.801 during an opening five-lap stint and was less than a tenth of a second quicker than Matteo Cairoli in the sister No. 46 Porsche.

Gabriel Aubry took third for Ferrari squad Spirit of Race, with AF Corse’s two GTE-Am Ferraris in fourth and fifth.

Qualifying for the 6 Hours of Fuji takes place at 2:40 p.m. local time (1:40 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Free Practice 3