Portimao WEC: United LMP2 leads Alpine in final practice

The ex-Formula 1 driver knocked two tenths from the lap with which he had topped the Saturday morning session in United's solo Oreca 07-Gibson, the Scot getting down to a 1m31.628s to top the times over the final 60 minutes of practice.

The time gave him the top spot by a couple of hundredths of a second over the Alpine A480-Gibson grandfathered LMP1. 

Nicolas Lapierre set a 1m31.652s in the car that formerly raced as the Rebellion R-13 to head the Hypercar class. 

Antonio Felix da Costa, who had led the way in FP1, took third place overall with his best time of the weekend, a 1m31.765s, in the fastest of the JOTA team's P2 Orecas.

The solo Glickenhaus Le Mans Hypercar jumped to fourth position ahead of the two Toyotas in the dying moments of the session courtesy of a 1m31.916s from Richard Westbrook. 

That put the Pipo-engined 007 LMH just under a tenth up on Sebastien Buemi in the best of the Toyotas and four tenths up on Mike Consway, who ended up ninth fastest overall in the sister LMH car with a 1m32.310s.

The American boutique manufacturer bounced back from gearbox problems that had curtailed its running in the Saturday morning session.

Alex Brundle was sixth fastest overall and third in P2 aboard the Inter Europol Oreca with a fastest lap of 1m31.998s. 

Racing Team Nederland and WRT filled out the next two spots with their P2 Orecas driven by Job van Uitert and Robin Frijns respectively. 

Tenth place behind the second Toyota was taken by the DragonSpeed Oreca with Ben Hanley at the wheel. 

Porsche returned to the top of the times in GTE Pro with Kevin Estre. 

The Frenchman recorded a 1m38.082s to jump ahead of Gianmaria Bruni's 1m38.850s in the second of the Manthey-run 911 RSRs.

Daniel Serra took third position in class aboard the best of the factory AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evos, his best lap of 1m38.953s just edging out teammate James Calado. 

Matteo Cairoli set the pace in GTE Am with aboard his Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR.

Qualifying for Sunday's Portimao 8 Hours, round two of the 2021 WEC, begins at 6pm local time in Portugal. 

FP3 results:

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	22	Philip Hanson Wayne Boyd Paul di Resta	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'31.628
2	36	Andre Negrao Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere	Alpine A480	HYPERCAR	1'31.652	0.024
3	38	Roberto Gonzalez Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'31.765	0.137
4	709	Ryan Briscoe Romain Dumas Richard Westbrook	Glickenhaus 007 LMH	HYPERCAR	1'31.916	0.288
5	8	Sébastien Buemi Kazuki Nakajima Brendon Hartley	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'31.974	0.346
6	34	Jakub Smiechowski Louis Deletraz Alex Brundle	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'31.998	0.370
7	29	Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'32.065	0.437
8	31	Robin Frijns Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'32.195	0.567
9	7	Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'32.310	0.682
10	21	Henrik Hedman Juan Pablo Montoya Ben Hanley	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'32.378	0.750
11	28	Sean Gelael Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'32.511	0.883
12	70	Esteban Garcia Mathias Beche Norman Nato	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'32.626	0.998
13	20	Jan Magnussen Anders Fjordbach Dennis Andersen	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'32.827	1.199
14	1	Tatiana Calderon Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'33.356	1.728
15	44	Miro Konopka Oliver Webb Tom Jackson	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	1'33.842	2.214
16	92	Kevin Estre Neel Jani Michael Christensen	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	1'38.082	6.454
17	91	Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz Frédéric Makowiecki	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	1'38.850	7.222
18	52	Daniel Serra Miguel Molina	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	1'38.953	7.325
19	56	Egidio Perfetti Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'39.186	7.558
20	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	1'39.199	7.571
21	77	Christian Ried Jaxon Evans Matt Campbell	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'39.577	7.949
22	54	Thomas Flohr Francesco Castellacci Giancarlo Fisichella	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'39.583	7.955
23	86	Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'39.625	7.997
24	47	Roberto Lacorte Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'39.709	8.081
25	83	François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'39.721	8.093
26	85	Rahel Frey Michelle Gatting Manuela Gostner	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'39.889	8.261
27	60	Claudio Schiavoni Andrea Piccini Matteo Cressoni	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'39.984	8.356
28	88	Dominique Bastien Marco Seefried Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'40.087	8.459
29	777	Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Andrew Watson	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'40.236	8.608
30	57	Takeshi Kimura Mikkel Jensen Scott Andrews	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'40.402	8.774
31	33	Ben Keating Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'40.479	8.851
32	98	Paul Dalla Lana Augusto Farfus Marcos Gomes	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'40.595	8.967
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