Jani steals top spot from Toyota in Le Mans practice
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Neel Jani has stormed to the top of times in the final five minutes of the sole free practice session to battle back against Toyota ahead of the 85th edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours.
Kamui Kobayashi had placed his #7 Toyotoa TS050 Hybrid at the top with a blitzing 3m 20.966s to take top spot from Earl Bamber's earlier effort of 3m 21.687s in the #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid, but Jani who claimed the 2016 pole stepped up his pace in the last minutes of track action with a 3m 20.362s to bump Toyota back.
Having stormed the times during the test day the three-car Toyota LMP1 effort comes into the race strong favourites to avenge its painful defeat from 12 months ago, when Kazuki Nakajima was the unfortunate driver to have his car stop at the start of the final lap and fail to finish.
Kobayashi's time was enough to keep hold of second spot from the #2 Porsche - despite a late spin at the final corner which saw the Japanese driver going backwards down the start/finish straight -with the #8 Toyota of Nakajima, Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi in fourth and the final #9 Toyota of Jose Maria Lopez, Nicolas Lapierre and Yuji Kunimoto in fifth ahead of the sole privateer LMP1 of ByKolles Racing.
Oreca give familiar feeling to LMP2 with G-Drive Racing on top
The #26 G-Drive Racing Oreca of Roman Rusinov, Pierre Thiriet and Alex Lynn topped the LMP2 times in the four-hour session as the Oreca-running teams locked out the top eight positions in the class.
G-Drive Racing topped the times with a 3m 30.363s from Lynn to shuffle off the #13 Vaillante Rebellion Oreca late on with the pace sharpening under the intense Le Mans sunshine with the second #31 Vaillante Rebellion taking third position.
The #47 Cetilar Villorba Corse Dallara of Roberto Lacorte, Giorgio Sernagiotto and Andre Belicchi suffered a late tumble into the gravel which required a rescue effort and gave them a trip to the race stewards after the session.
AF Corse Ferrari keep clear, di Grassi out of Le Mans
The #71 AF Corse Ferrari of Sam Bird, Davide Rigon and Miguel Molina took charge of the GTE Pro class honours with a 3m 54.820s, but the biggest shock came from its sister car with the withdrawal of Lucas di Grassi with a broken fibula.
Midway through the four-hour session AF Corse Ferrari confirmed di Grassi would take no part in the Le Mans 24 Hour race due to his injury sustained before his recent Formula E race in Berlin, with Michele Rugolo taking his place in the #51 car.
The #97 Aston Martin Vantage of Darren Turner, Jonathan Adam and Daniel Serra had led the times for the majority of the session before #71 AF Corse's late attack but they held on to second to split the Ferrari cars.
Aston Martin surprise in GTE Am
The #98 Aston Martin of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda shocked in by carving halfway up the GTE Pro classification to easily take top spot in the Am category ahead of a trio of Ferrari cars headed by DH Racing Ferrari of Tracy Krohn, Nicolas Jonsson and Andrea Bertolini.
