There are no two without three and ‘Pechito’ López has scored the third practice session of the 6 Hours of Monza as I did in the first two practices. With a time seven tenths faster than in the previous session, López has surpassed Brendon Hartley by more than a second. A double with very different flavors on each side of the box awaiting a classification in which the Toyota # 7 is the great favorite. Be that as it may, behind the two Toyota GR010 Hybrids is Glickenhaus # 708 thanks to Pipo Derani. Alpine # 36 was fourth, while Glickenhaus # 709 finished fifth.
Although FP3 has been resolved on the fast track, as four of the five best times were carried out in the first 10 minutes of the session, the last practice session has made it clear that Toyota # 7 starts with some favoritism in the race to pole. However, the Alpine # 36 has not contested the third free in full after receiving some urgent ‘patches’ after the touch between the LMP1 and one of the Ferraris in the LMGTE-Am category at the end of FP2. With everything, if there is a truly open pole fight it is in LMP2.
In fact, the alternation has been maximum with dominance of three different LMP2 prototypes in the free three. If in FP1 the best time was for Oreca # 22 of United Autosports and in FP2 it fell on the side of # 29 of Racing Team Nederland, the third practice session was for Oreca # 28 of Jota thanks to 1: 38.910 scored by Stoffel Vandoorne. Own # 22 captained by Filipe Albuquerque has finished second, while the # 82 of Risi Competizione has slipped in third position. It should be remembered that this prototype does not regularly compete in the WEC and uses the Monza round to prepare for Le Mans.
Although the session has been slightly altered by a brief period of ‘FCY’ by the spin of Matej Konopka with the Ligier of ARC Bratislava, this neutralization has not affected the normal development of the session. Among the GTE, Gianmaria Bruni has set the standard with the Porsche # 91 after beating Ferrari # 51 and # 52. For its part, the Ferrari # 83 by AF Corse has been the reference car in LMGTE-Am thanks to Nicklas Nielsen. A category in which there will be one less GTE on the grid after confirmation from Inception Racing that it will no longer compete for his accident in FP2.