The second meeting of the FIA WEC season began at Spa with a 1-2-3-4 for LMP2 cars in Free Practice 1.
Robin Frijns — with a 2m05.475s in WRT’s No. 31 ORECA — emerged as the fastest driver in the session. His best tour of the new-look Spa circuit was just 0.063 quicker than the Filipe Albuquerque’s best which put him second in the No. 22 United Autosports 07 Gibson. The sister No. 23 United ORECA slotted in third with the No. 38 JOTA crew taking fourth despite a throttle sensor issue which limited the team to just nine laps.
The best of the Le Mans Hypercar class cars was the No. 708 Glickenhaus 007, with Romain Dumas setting the team’s best time, a 2m06.233s to put the American-flagged machine over half a second quicker than the fastest of the two Toyotas — the No. 7 that posted the eighth-best time overall. Between the Glickenhaus and Toyota were the No. 5 Penske and No. 41 Realteam by WRT ORECAs.
To find the other two Hypercars you need to scroll even further down the running order, as the No. 8 GR010 could only manage 13th and the Alpine, which has had a 20 kW power reduction following the French team’s dominant performance in the season opener at Sebring.
In the GTE ranks, Porsche’s 911 RSR 19s led the way in Pro, finishing 1-2 in the times with the best lap a 2m14.583s from Kevin Estre in the No. 92, a few tenths up on the sister No. 91. AF Corse’s two 488 GTEs took third and fourth, with the No. 64 Corvette ending up fifth behind the quickest of the Am class runners.
The quickest car in Am was the No. 46 Team Project 1 Porsche, after Matteo Cairoli reeled off a 2m15.982s. Second in the class was the No. 33 TF Sport Aston Martin which caused the only full-course yellow period during the session when Ben Keating had to be lifted out of the gravel.
Elsewhere in the class, there were two driver changes in the No. 85 Iron Dames Ferrari, as two-time IMSA GTD champion Christina Nielsen and Doriane Pin have been drafted in on short notice to replace Sarah Bovy and Michele Gatting. Bovy has been forced to miss her home race due to a positive COVID test and Gatting has been counted out by team protocol as she was declared a close contact by the team.
RESULTS
UP NEXT: FP2 is set to get underway at 09:05am tomorrow morning local time in Belgium.
