Day one of practice has conclude for the start of the Qatar 1812 km weekend. Porsche Penske Remain unmatched at the top of the tables after leading both practice sessions on day one. Kevin Estre drove his Porsche Penske Motorsport’s No.6 963 hypercar to set a sub 1:40 lap time a 1m39.990s lap. The feat meant Estre was the first drive ever to break the 90 second lap barrier. The No.6 car lead the second place finishers the No. 93 Peugeot by 0.782s. The Hertz Team JOTA No. 38 Porsche 963 finished FP2 third fastest.
Toyota Falling Behind?
In surprising fashion the pace of last years champions, Toyota Gazoo Racing seemed well off that of a team headed toward sure victory. Toyota Gazoo Racing dominated the hypercar class in 2023 and are looking to repeat that result in 2024. Kamui Kobayashi (Team Principal and driver, car #7) said “Everything went smoothly today but still we are not where we want to be. We are trying to find out how we can make the tires work on this track with our car, which is not easy. We have made progress and we are improving but the step forward today wasn’t as big as I hoped for. We will keep working to find more solutions and be ready for the race.” Toyota finished 8th and 13th in hypercar during FP2. The drivers also commented.
Nyck de Vries (Driver, car #7)
“It is hard to get a full picture of our position relative to the competition. Everyone is running different programs and we don’t know all the details, but it’s clear we have a steep challenge in front of us. We are continuing to understand more and hopefully we can put everything together in the best way for the race, but we still have a bit of work to do.”
Sébastien Buemi (Driver, car #8):
“Overall this has been a better day than the Prologue. We didn’t look great on one-lap pace but on long runs we were clearly better. I feel like we have made a step in the right direction and now we will work hard to improve further. The conditions in FP2 were completely different to the earlier session, a lot cooler in the night. The end of the race will be like that, so it was important to experience it.”
LMGT3
In LMGT3 the Vista AF Corsa No. 55 and No.54 cars topped the table in class ahead of the No. 31 Team WRT BMW M4. The Ferraris were separated by 0.3s with the Team WRT No. 31 car behind by less than a tenth in third. The session was red flagged twice with the second ending the practice session early.
Full FP2 Results Are Below
The third free practice session is scheduled for 11am local time on Friday morning.