Three days before the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2024, the Prancing Horse Hypercars were back on track today for the first free practice and qualifying sessions. In the qualifying round, the two official 499Ps finished third and seventh, respectively, with Antonio Fuoco and Alessandro Pier Guidi at the wheel of Hypercars number 50 and 51, thus qualifying for tomorrow’s Hyperpole.
However, AF Corse’s Ferrari number 83 qualified in 13th place, from which it will start the race that kicks off on Saturday, 15 June, at 4 p.m. (local time).
Free Practice 1. Free Practice 1 kicked off at 2 p.m. on the French track. Several yellow and two red flags interrupted the three-hour session, during which all the Ferrari – AF Corse official drivers took turns at the wheel.
The session ran under dry track conditions, with air and asphalt temperatures reaching 18.9°C and 26.5°C by the chequered flag.
Fuoco-Molina-Nielsen’s number 50 was the fastest of the official team’s 499Ps, finishing eighth at 3’26”973, just 0”960 seconds behind the session leader, Toyota’s number 8. Teammates Pier Guidi-Calado-Giovinazzi in the number 51 Hypercar finished sixteenth. The two red-liveried cars completed 58 laps, equally divided between them.
The AF Corse team’s 499P number 83, driven by the Maranello official drivers Ye and Shwartzman, who share the car with Kubica, finished 11th with a best time of 3’27”513.
Qualifying. The cars returned to the track at 7 p.m. for the qualifying session under the same dry conditions as in the afternoon but with cooler air temperatures of around 19°C and asphalt between 27°C and 29.4°C.
Fuoco and Pier Guidi drove in the session, targeting the top-eight finish necessary to access Thursday’s Hyperpole.
Fuoco posted the third-best time (0”266 behind the leader, the number 15 BMW), stopping the clock at 3’24”731. Meanwhile, Pier Guidi lapped the 13-kilometre-plus French track in 3’25”049, setting the seventh fastest time.
At the end of a hard-fought session, AF Corse’s 499P number 83, with Ye at the wheel, qualified 13th, 1’301 off the leader.