Portimao FP3: Hartley Fastest for Toyota; Vector Sport leads again in LMP2

The Toyota driver just shaded James Calado in the No.51 Ferrari AF Corse entry.

Gabriel Aubry again led the way in LMP2 for Vector Sport, while Davide Rigon was quickest for AF Corse in the LMGTE Am category.

Below are the main headlines from FP3.

Hypercar

• Brendon Hartley claims the fastest lap of third and final Free Practice session with a 1m31.795s best in the No.8 Toyota Gazoo Racing run Toyota GR010 Hybrid Hypercar
• Kiwi laps just 0.189s faster than James Calado in No.51 Ferrari AF Corse entry in close session
• Toyota place third with No.7 entry as Kamui Kobayashi sets 1m32.073s best. Japanese ace just avoids hitting No.88 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 SRSR-19 in early phase of session at Turn 7
• No.94 Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8 sits fourth as early time is set by Nico Mueller
• Cadillac V-Series.R places fifth as a 1m32.818s best is achieved by Richard Westbrook in No.2 car.
• Floyd Vanwall show great improvement in pace as an excellent 1m32.922 is set by Tom Dillmann to claim best position in a session so far this season.
• The Vanwall heads the No.50 Ferrari AF Corse, both Porsche Penske 963 Hypercars and No.93 Peugeot entry.
• Glickenhaus Racing  rounds out the Hypercar class in 11^th position.

LMP2

• Vector Sport again take fastest lap in LMP2 class as Gabriel Aubry sets a stunning 1m34.265s lap, 0.4s faster than his best from FP2 yesterday.
• Louis Deletraz places the No.41 WRT car in second position on a 1m34.276s, just 0.002s off Aubry’s time.
• WRT also third as Robin Frijns laps in a 1m34.497s best in the No.31 Oreca-Gibson machine.
• Memo Rojas in the No.35 LMP2 Alpine causes red flag after 35-minutes after being hit by the No.94 Peugeot 9X8 Hypercar.
• Debris from Alpine sees rack needing to be cleared.
• The sister No.36 Alpine also in the wars as Julien Canal spins and is hit lightly by David Heinemeier Hansson in No.28 Jota Oreca-Gibson.

That’s a P1 light we can see here as FP3 endsGabi Aubry doing the biz with a lap of 1:34.265 and great times too from @RyanCullenRace and Mathias Kaiser pic.twitter.com/5b9fAA2iQ4

— Vectorsport (@Vectorsport1) April 15, 2023

LMGTE Am

• Davide Rigon sets the best LMGTE Am lap with a 1m40.426 to claim fastest class lap of the week so far in the No.54 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.
• Alessio Rovera sets late time to place second for the Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari. His lap is 0.3s off Rigon's ultimate quickest
• Iron Dames surge to front as Michelle Gatting laps in a 1m40.899s best in pink and black Porsche 911 RSR-19 for third place.
• Alessio Piciarello makes it a strong session for Iron Lynx as Belgian peaks on a 1m40.936s fastest lap in No.60 Ferrari for fourth in class.

The qualifying sessions are due to begin at 3:30 p.m. local time this afternoon (Saturday).

Find full results HERE