6h São Paulo: Alpine ahead of Genesis in third free practice

As the FIA WEC 2026 season heads into its fourth race weekend, the tension is really building. On Saturday evening (our time), the third free practice session took place – and Alpine proved unbeatable. Victor Martin, who shares an A424 with the two Frenchmen Jules Gounon and Frédéric Makowiecki, completed a lap of the 4.309-kilometre circuit in 1:24.038 minutes. This is also the fastest time of the race weekend so far. It means the teams and drivers are now really stepping up their game.

Second place in the third free practice session went to the Genesis GMR-001 hypercar driven by Paul-Loup Chatin, Mathieu Jaminet and Daniel Juncadella, 0.165 seconds behind. As is well known, this car had set the fastest time on the first day of practice in São Paulo. Third in the session was the Aston Martin Valkyrie driven by Tom Gamble and Harry Tincknell, who were 0.182 seconds behind.

Local hero Luis Felipe Derani, André Lotterer and Mathys Jaubert took fourth place in the second Genesis, 0.192 seconds behind. The top five was rounded off by the works Ferrari 499P driven by Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen. In the LMGT3 class, the Mercedes-AMG LMGT3 driven by Rui Andrade, Martin Berry and Maxime Martin set the pace with a time of 1:34.283 minutes. The FIA WEC qualifying/Hyperpole session at Interlagos is due to take place on Saturday. The race is then scheduled for tomorrow, Sunday (12 July 2026).