Hertz Team JOTA became the third Hypercar team in three practice sessions to top the times at Interlagos this morning, after Peugeot and Toyota set benchmark times during FP1 and 2 yesterday.
Callum Ilott set the best time for the team aboard the No. 12 Porsche 963 in the 60-minute session, which was hit with a sprinkle of rain after 15 minutes of track action. His lap was a 1m24.297s, good enough to go two thousandths up on the No. 5 Porsche Penske 963 which ended up second.
It was a strong session for Porsche in the changeable conditions, with the No. 6 Penske 963 ending up third in the times, also with a lap time within a tenth of the lead JOTA Porsche.
Best of the rest was the No. 35 Alpine A424 in fourth, its quickest tour a 1m24.644s. The No. 15 BMW Team WRT completed the top five, also with a 1m24.6s.
It was a pleasant surprise to see a flash of pace from Lamborghini Iron Lynx, the SC63 ending up sixth with a faster time than all three Ferrari 499Ps and the two Toyotas.
All the best times were set early in the session, the rain slowing the cars down by multiple seconds during the final half-hour. It was, however, another useful data-gathering exercise for the teams, who were still perfecting their setups on this circuit ahead of qualifying and testing different tire combinations in the varying conditions.
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In LMGT3, Porsche ran fastest too, the No. 92 joint championship-leading Manthey Pure Rxcing Porsche ending up atop the leaderboard with a 1m35.488s set by Alex Malykhin.
It was an encouraging session for United Autosports, its pair of McLaren GT3 Evos ending up second and fourth with the No. 95 getting within a tenth of the Pure Rxcing 911 with a 1m35.550s. The Iron Dames Lamborghini split the two McLarens, with a 1m35.639s from Sarah Bovy.
It was an almost incident-free session, despite the rain, and there were just two notable moments. One was a clash between the No. 36 Alpine of Matthieu Vaxiviere and No. 11 Isotta Fraschini of Carl Bennett at Turn 8. Thankfully it was only a light tough and a spin for the Tipo6-C.
The other was unseen contact for the No. 31 WRT BMW M4 LMGT3 which prompted the team to box the car for a bodywork check.
Qualifying is next up at 2:30pm local time.