2021 Le Mans 24 Hours | Toyota flexes its muscles in FP2 as night falls

Toyota filled the top two positions in a shortened second free practice for the 2021 Le Mans 24 Hours as the 62-strong field got to grips with the 14km Circuit de la Sarthe in the dark.

Coming shortly after a busy hour of qualifying decided which cars would make it through into the grid-deciding Hyperpole on Thursday, both Toyotas were closely-matched under the cover of darkness with just a 0.6s splitting the two GR010 Hybrids.

After the #7 car led the way in FP1 and Qualifying, it was the turn of the #8 Toyota belonging to Brendon Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima to hit the top of the timesheets for the first time this week.

Having struggled relative to its Hypercar rivals - the two Toyotas and Alpine - earlier in the day, American newcomers Glickenhaus showed a stronger turn of pace in FP2 with the #708 in the hands of Olivier Pla, ending the session just 0.8secs off the top spot.

Together with the Alpine in fourth and the second of the Glickenhaus entries in fifth, less than two seconds covered the leading Hypercars.

Jota consolidated its fastest lap time from qualifying to top the LMP2 class once again, courtesy of Antonio Felix da Costa, ahead of the Swiss Realtime Racing car led by former winner Loic Duval and United Autosports USA’s Philip Hanson.

In GTE Pro, Porsche  moved to the head of the timesheets with the privateer WeatherTech 911 of Laurens Vanthoor emerging quickest from the works sister car of Richard Leitz.

In GTE Am, Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche went quickest, heading off the Rinaldi Racing Ferrari.

Two red flags punctuated proceedings, the first coming with an hour to go when leading GTE Pro AF Corse Ferrari driver Daniel Serra stopped with a puncture, before a second shortly before the chequered flag was thrown when both the DragonSpeed Oreca - fifth in LMP2 - and the Am Project 1 Porsche crashed in separate incidents.