The Toyotas sign a double in free practice 3 at Sebring

Before tackling qualifying for the 1,000 Miles of Sebring on Thursday (from 11:30 p.m. French time), the 36 crews still in the race in Florida were to compete in the third and final free practice session. For the Vanwall n°4 (Dillmann – Guerrieri – Villeneuve), a newcomer to Hypercar, the session was quickly cut short as the French driver pulled over to the side of the track on his first lap.

Then, Toyota showed its speed again on the bumpy Sebring track. Although it was a Ferrari, the n°50 (Fuoco – Molina – Nielsen), which impressed at the start of the session, with a time of 1’46″777, the GR010s quickly rose to the top of the time sheet : 1’45″783 for the n°7 (Conway – Kobayashi – Lopez) and 1’46″392 for the n°8 (Buemi – Hartley – Hirakawa). The Japanese Hypercars remained there until the end of the 60 minutes But the n°7, with Lopez at the wheel, ended the session with an accident which damaged the rear of the prototype.

Peugeot is progressing but remains far from the Toyotas

Behind, the 499P n°50 retained 3rd place, 99 hundredths behind the n°7, four tenths ahead of the Cadillac n°2 (Bamber – Lynn – Westbrook). Peugeot has finally shown progress with its 9X8. The n°93 (Di Resta – Jensen – Vergne) finished 5th, in 1’47″965, but still 2″1 behind the fastest Toyota. The n°94 (Duval – Menezes – Müller) signed the 9th time, at 2.8.

Between the two were inserted the first of the Porsche 963, the n°5 (Cameron – Christensen – Makowiecki), at 2.5, the second Ferrari, the n°51 (Pier Guidi – Calado – Giovinazzi), at 2.6 , and the second Porsche, the n°6 (Estre – Lotterer – Vanthoor), at 2.7. The last Hypercar, the Glickenhaus n°708 (Dumas – Briscoe – Pla), finished much further, in 19th place, at 5″5

In LMP2, the #28 JOTA (Heinemeier Hansson – Fittipaldi – Rasmussen) set the fastest time (1’50″128), and in GTE Am the #98 Aston Martin of Northwest AMR dominated the debates in 1’59″030.