Lynn Puts Cadillac On Top in Final COTA Practice

Alex Lynn sent Cadillac to the top of the timesheets in final practice for this weekend’s Lone Star Le Mans round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Lynn posted a best effort of 1:51.471 aboard the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R in Saturday morning’s 60-minute session at the Circuit of The Americas, in what appeared to be one of several qualifying simulations in the Hypercar field.

The top 11 cars were all quicker than the best time set during Friday practice, while the top five runners were all split by less than a tenth of a second.

Antonio Fuoco continued Ferrari’s strong practice form with the second-best time in the No. 50 499P, just 0.040 seconds slower than Lynn, while Kamui Kobayashi was third-fastest in the best of the Toyota GR010 Hybrids, the No. 7 machine.

The third-string No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari was fourth-fastest in the hands of Robert Kubica, a single thousandth of a second slower than Kobayashi, narrowly ahead of the No. 8 Toyota wheeled by Sebastien Buemi.

Ferrari’s No. 51 entry was seventh-quickest, 0.296 seconds off the pace in the hands of Antonio Giovinazzi, behind Norman Nato in the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche 963.

The No. 36 Alpine A424 of Mick Schumacher briefly topped the times early in the session and ended up an encouraging eighth-fastest.

The works Porsches had a low-key session, with the No. 6 car of Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell in the No. 5 car only going 11th- and 12th-fastest respectively.

In LMGT3, TF Sport’s pair of Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs locked out the top two positions, with FP2 pacesetter Daniel Juncadella’s No. 82 car topping the charts with his very final effort of 2:05.178 – about half a second up on his Friday benchmark.

That demoted Charlie Eastwood, who led into the closing stages with a best time of 2:05.351 in the sister No. 81 car, to second.

Making a similarly late improvement was the best of the AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3s, the No. 54 car of Davide Rigon, to jump up to third place.

That meant Gregoire Saucy’s No. 59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo ended up fourth ahead of the Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Ian James.

Qualifying for the Lone Star Le Mans begins at 3 p.m. local time (4 p.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Free Practice 3