Kobayashi Tops FP2 With Toyota Teammate Hartley Third

Toyota Gazoo Racing finished first and third in the second Free Practice session for the 6 Hours of Monza as Kamui Kobayashi came away with the fastest overall lap time.

Kobayashi posted a 1:36.363 in the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid that he shares with Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez, going 0.17 seconds quicker than Ferrari AF Corse driver Antonio Fuoco.

The No. 50 Ferrari 499P sandwiched the two Toyotas in the classification as Brendon Hartley settled for third with a 1:36.686 effort.

The top four entries in Hypercar lapped the 3.6-mile circuit within a margin of four-tenths as Alex Lynn produced a 1:36.748 in the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R.

Lap times improved greatly on the figures submitted during FP1 earlier on Friday, with Kobayashi taking just over a second off the previous pace-setter from Ferrari driver Alessandro Pier Guidi. The No. 51 Ferrari only managed seventh in the latter session.

FP2 was interrupted by a single Full Course Yellow period shortly after the halfway point of the 90-minute run, which took place in hot and sunny late afternoon conditions.

The slow-down was caused by the Proton Competition Porsche 963 stopping on-track at the Rettifilio, while gravel also needed to be cleared from the surface over at Ascari.

There were few notable improvements after the short FCY, except for Frederic Makowiecki jumped to fifth in the No. 5 Porsche from the factory Penske squad, knocking the privateer Proton car down a position.

The two Peugeot 9X8s ranked eighth and tenth, either side of the Hertz Team JOTA Porsche.

Robert Kubica broke the 1m 40s barrier to lead the way in LMP2 with a 1:39.995 benchmark for the No. 41 Team WRT entry.

As was the case in Hypercar, WRT led the session and also finished third, with Inter Europol Competition’s Oreca 07 Gibson slotting in between.

Porsche customer teams had a strong showing in the GTE-Am class where vehicles from the German manufacturer blocked out the top three.

Alessio Picariello was the category leader for Iron Lynx, beating GR Racing’s Riccardo Pera by six-tenths of a second.

Julien Andlauer initially looked set to take third for Proton Competition, until Matteo Cairoli of Team Project 1-AO and AF Corse Ferrari driver Davide Rigon eclipsed the Frenchman with two minutes to go.

Free Practice action at Monza continues with a 60-minute session at 10:45 a.m. CEST (4:45 a.m. EDT) on Saturday.

RESULTS: Free Practice 2