Kamui Kobayashi posted the quickest overall lap time as Toyota Gazoo Racing took first and third place dominating the second Free Practice session for the 6 Hours of Monza.
In the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid that he shares with Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez, Kobayashi recorded a 1:36.363 lap time outpacing Ferrari AF Corse driver Antonio Fuoco by 0.17 seconds.
Brendon Hartley finished third with a time of 1:36.686 as the No. 50 Ferrari 499P stood between the two Toyotas in the timesheets. Cadillac’s single Ganassi-run V-Series.R finished fourth in FP2 thanks to Alex Lynn’s 1m36.748s. The top four entries in Hypercar lapped the 3.6-mile circuit within a margin of four-tenths.
The lap times were significantly faster than those recorded during Free Practice 1 earlier on Friday, with Kobayashi shaving little under a second off Ferrari driver Alessandro Pier Guidi’s previous record. In the second session, the No. 51 Ferrari could only finish seventh.
The 90-minute run, which took place in hot and sunny late afternoon conditions, was cut short by a single Full Course Yellow period right after the halfway point. This came after the Proton Competition Porsche 963 stopped in the middle of the track at the Rettifilio, and there was also gravel on the track at Ascari that needed to be removed.
In the closing stages of the session, Frederic Makowiecki improved his Porsche 963 LMDhs fastest time to move up to fifth place with a time of 1m36.991. The private Proton Competition car was beaten into sixth position by the factory #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry by two tenths of a second as a consequence.
With a brand-new Proton 963 that had only undergone a brief shakedown at Porsche’s Weissach test center before arriving for its WEC debut in Monza, Harry Tincknell finished barely eight tenths off the lead with 1m37.181s.
Alessandro Pier Guidi’s Le Mans 24 Hours-winning Ferrari narrowly missed a spot in the top six after the Italian shaved three tenths off the lap that led the FP1 times to drop to a 1m37.204s.
The fastest of the two Peugeot 9X8 LMHs completed the session in eighth place and was within a second of Jean-Eric Vergne’s session record of 1m37.269s. Will Stevens’ 1m37.637s at the end of the 90 minutes propelled the Jota Porsche which had just edged out Ferrari earlier in the day into the top 10.
Gustavo Menezes’ time of 1 minute, 37.638 seconds saw the second Peugeot claim 10th place.
Nathanael Berthon’s 1m38.234s put the Glickenhaus car nearly two seconds off the lead, as the car finished 11th on the same track where it won pole position the previous year.
The WRT team took the lead in LMP2 once more, but this time Inter Europol which was the class winner at the Le Mans 24 Hours, split the Belgian team’s two ORECA-Gibson 07s.
Robert Kubica beat Albert Costa’s 1m40.136s in the Inter Europol ORECA by two tenths to lead the times for a second straight session. Only two hundredths separated the Spaniard’s time from Ferdinand Habsburg’s 1m40.162s in the second WRT entry.
With its #22 car, United Autosport placed fourth with a time of 1m40.348s recorded by Phil Hanson.
In the GTE-Am class, Porsche customer teams performed impressively with the German manufacturer’s cars sealing out the top three.
Iron Lynx’s Alessio Picariello topped the category by six tenths of a second over Riccardo Pera of GR Racing.
The Proton Competition’s Julien Andlauer appeared poised to finish third until Matteo Cairoli of Team Project 1-AO and AF Corse Ferrari driver Davide Rigon overcame the Frenchman with two minutes remaining.
