Martins Sets Sao Paulo FP3 Pace for Alpine

Victor Martins set the pace for Alpine in the final practice session ahead of the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo FIA World Endurance Championship round as the top-ten were separated by just over half a second.

Martins clocked a 1:24.038 early in the hour-long session in the No. 36 Signatech-run Alpine A424 that was good enough to head the leaderboard by 0.165 seconds over the No. 19 Genesis GMR-001 of FP2 pacesetter Mathieu Jaminet.

Jaminet, who went fractionally quicker than in FP2, was in turn one of five cars separated by less than a tenth of a second.

Third fastest was the No. 007 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie of Tom Gamble as the manufacturer once again featured towards the top of the timesheets after setting the benchmark in FP1.

Fourth quickest was the second of the Genesis machines, the No. 19 car being piloted by local racer Pipo Derani registering a 1:24.230.

Completing the quintet in the 1:24.2s was the No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Antonio Fuoco and the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R of Jack Aitken.

Seventh fastest was the second of the factory Ferraris, Antonio Giovinazzi managing a 1:24.478, which was fractionally faster than the second of the Alpines, the No. 35 of Charles Milesi.

Peugeot endured a challenging FP3 with the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 missing much of the session while a sensor was changed before Malthe Jakobsen then posted a 1:24.492 to end up ninth fastest with around 10 minutes to go.

Rounding out the top-ten was then the second of the Aston Martin entries, the No. 009 car in the hands of Marco Sorensen.

Toyota again languished outside of the top-ten with the best of the TR010s being the No. 8 of Ryo Hirakawa in 12th place and seven tenths adrift of Martins’ pace.

It was also a low-key session for BMW with the pick of the WRT-run BMW M Hybrid V8s being the No. 20 of Sheldon van der Linde with a 1:25.131 in 16th.

There was only one brief interruption during the session when a full-course yellow was called to retrieve debris.

It was even closer in the LMGT3 ranks as the quickest two cars set an identical time.

The No. 61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Rui Andrade was first to post a 1:34.283 and therefore topped the leaderboard, but Clemens Schmid in the No. 87 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 then matched Andrade’s effort a few minutes later.

This pair were 0.133 seconds faster than the opposition, which was headed by Simon Mann in the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo.

Fourth fastest was Giammarco Levorato in the No. 88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 EVO on a 1:34.593, while the best of the WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVOs, the No. 69 of Anthony McIntosh, completed the top-five on a 1:34.673.

Remarkably, two other cars also set identical times with the pair of Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evos both managing a 1:34.783 to finish up in ninth and tenth.

Attention now turns to qualifying, with the first session for LMGT3 machinery due to begin at 2:30 p.m. local time (1:30 p.m. EST).

RESULTS: Free Practice 3