Cadillac Racing broke Porsche’s dominance on the timesheets after Alex Lynn led the third and final practice for the FIA World Endurance Championship taking place in Qatar this weekend.
Alex Lynn’s best time of 1:40.667 aboard the No. 2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R marked the first time since the start of the Prologue test that a manufacturer other than Porsche had set the fastest time for the Qatar WEC at the Lusail International Circuit.
That beat the quickest time set by the Porsche 963s run by Penske Motorsport with 0.180 seconds as Matt Campbell briefly led the pack in the early stage of the one-hour session aboard the No. 6 car.
Lynn’s time was nearly seven tenths slower than the fastest lap of the week, which was recorded on Thursday night in far colder conditions by Kevin Estre in the #6 factory Porsche. Consequently, the German automaker is still leading going into qualifying on Friday.
The customer Jota squad placed third in FP3, with Callum Ilott’s timing of 1m41.121s in the #12 963 edging out Laurens Vanthoor’s second factory Porsche by 0.035s.
New arrival Stoffel Vandoorne finished a strong fifth in the highest placing of the two worksPeugeot 9X8, barely two-hundredths of a second behind Vanthoor’s Porsche, demonstrating Peugeot’s speed over the course of a single lap at the Lusail International Circuit.
The customer-owned No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P finished sixth in the hands of Yifei Ye, just ahead of the top-performing Ferrari No. 51 car driven by Antonio Giovinazzi as Jean-Eric Vergne’s No. 93 Peugeot finished in eighth.
Toyota’s No. 7 GR010 Hybrid placed ninth with rookie Nyck de Vries setting his fastest time in the final practice session while Antonio Fuoco’s No. 50 Ferrari placed tenth.
Of the newcomers, Alpine’s two A424s placed 12th and 13th, respectively, behind the Proton Competition Porsche, while BMW’s two M Hybrid V8s placed 14th and 15th, ahead of the Lamborghini SC63.
The second Toyota sat in 17th place, about two seconds behind the leaders only coming in ahead of the Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 Competizione and the No. 38 JOTA Porsche.
Alex Riberas in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo posted the fastest time in LMGT3, clocking in at 1:54.964. This was just 0.053 seconds faster than Davide Rigon’s best time onboard the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.
Simon Mann finished third in the sister No. 55 Ferrari outperforming Franck Perera’s No. 60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 and Marco Sorensen’s No. 777 D’station Racing Aston.
Frank Perera finished fourth in the #55 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3, while Marco Sorensen made it two Aston Martins in the top five driving the #777 D’station Vantage.
James Cottingham’s #59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 beached at Turn 5, causing a brief red flag that stopped up FP3. The British GT championship runner-up from the previous year was eventually able to restart, allowing the practice to continue.
