Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Spa WEC: SMP driver Sirotkin leads newcomer Vandoorne in FP1

Sergey Sirotkin led SMP Racing team-mate and fellow ex-Formula 1 racer Stoffel Vandoorne in the opening practice session for this weekend's Spa World Endurance Championship round

Sirotkin, who made his WEC debut for SMP in the Sebring 1000 Miles, set a lap time of 1m56.264s in the #17 BR Engineering BR1-AER with just under 30 minutes of the session remaining.

That followed Vandoorne's lap of 1m58.236s in the sister #11 car, which put the Belgian half a second up on the two Toyota TS050 Hybrids.

SMP's surge pushed the Toyotas down to third and fourth places, with early pacesetter Sebastien Buemi's 1m58.742s putting the #8 car 2.478s off the pace.

Mike Conway was a further four tenths down in the #7 machine and only two tenths up on the quickest of the Rebellion R-13s, the #3 of Gustavo Menezes.

Bruno Senna followed in sixth place in the second of the Rebellions, 4.171s down on Sirotkin.

Seventh overall was the best of the LMP2s, the newly-Michelin-shod Signatech Alpine Oreca entry of Andre Negrao.

The Brazilian driver's 2m03.441s put the #36 car ahead of early pacesetter Jean-Eric Vergne in the Aurus-badged G-Drive Racing Oreca, as well as the remaining LMP1, the ByKolles ENSO CLM P1/01.

Tom Dillmann set the best lap in the Gibson-powered #4 car, more than seven seconds slower the overall benchmark.

GTE Pro was headed by Aston Martin, courtesy of a 2m15.290s laptime from local driver Maxime Martin at the wheel of the #97 Vantage GTE.

Harry Tincknell's last-ditch effort in the quicker of the Ford GTs was identical, but the #67 was classified second, ahead of Antonio Felix da Costa in the #82 BMW M8 GTE.

Ford and Aston Martin's respective second cars were fourth and fifth, ahead of the #81 BMW, while Porsche's pair of 911 RSRs filled out seventh and eighth ahead of the two Ferrari 488 GTEs.

An early lap from Ben Barker put Gulf Racing at the head of the GTE Am times in the Gulf Racing Porsche, less than a tenth ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella in the Spirit of Race Ferrari.

The TF Sport Aston Martin was black-flagged for "constant track limits abuse" while Euan Hankey, returning to the team for the first time since last year's Le Mans 24 Hours, was at the wheel.

FP1 result

Pos Class Driver Team Car Gap Laps
1 LMP1 S.Sarrazin, E.Orudzhev, S.Sirotkin SMP Racing BR Engineering/AER 1m56.264s 21
2 LMP1 M.Aleshin, V.Petrov, S.Vandoorne SMP Racing BR Engineering/AER 1.972s 29
3 LMP1 S.Buemi, K.Nakajima, F.Alonso Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 2.478s 40
4 LMP1 M.Conway, K.Kobayashi, J.M.Lopez Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 2.613s 31
5 LMP1 N.Berthon, T.Laurent, G.Menezes Rebellion Racing Rebellion/Gibson 2.842s 33
6 LMP1 N.Jani, A.Lotterer, B.Senna Rebellion Racing Rebellion/Gibson 4.171s 29
7 LMP2 N.Lapierre, A.Negrao, P.Thiriet Signatech Alpine Matmut Alpine/Gibson 7.177s 31
8 LMP2 R.Rusinov, J.van Uitert, J-E.Vergne G-Drive Racing Aurus/Gibson 7.413s 15
9 LMP1 T.Dillmann, O.Webb, P.Ruberti ByKOLLES Racing Team ENSO CLM/Gibson 7.627s 12
10 LMP2 F.van Eerd, G.van der Garde, N.de Vries Racing Team Nederland Dallara/Gibson 8.085s 32
11 LMP2 R.Gonzalez, P.Maldonado, A.Davidson DragonSpeed ORECA/Gibson 8.232s 29
12 LMP2 H-Pin Tung, G.Aubry, S.Richelmi Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA/Gibson 8.352s 30
13 LMP2 D.H.Hansson, J.King, W.Stevens Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA/Gibson 8.643s 33
14 LMP2 F.Perrodo, M.Vaxiviere, N.Nato TDS Racing ORECA/Gibson 8.645s 35
15 LMP2 E.Creed, R.Ricci, N.Boulle Larbre Competition Ligier/Gibson 10.339s 32
16 GTE Pro A.Lynn, M.Martin Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 19.026s 32
17 GTE Pro A.Priaulx, H.Tincknell Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford 19.026s 30
18 GTE Pro A.Farfus, A.F.da Costa BMW Team MTEK BMW 19.142s 33
19 GTE Pro S.Mucke, O.Pla Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford 19.384s 29
20 GTE Pro M.Sorensen, N.Thiim Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 19.990s 34
21 GTE Pro M.Tomczyk, N.Catsburg BMW Team MTEK BMW 20.047s 31
22 GTE Pro R.Lietz, G.Bruni Porsche GT Team Porsche 20.066s 30
23 GTE Pro M.Christensen, K.Estre Porsche GT Team Porsche 20.225s 30
24 GTE Pro A.P.Guidi, J.Calado AF Corse Ferrari 20.235s 28
25 GTE Pro D.Rigon, S.Bird AF Corse Ferrari 20.437s 29
26 GTE Am M.Wainwright, B.Barker, T.Preining Gulf Racing Porsche 20.804s 33
27 GTE Am T.Flohr, F.Castellacci, G.Fisichella Spirit of Race Ferrari 20.874s 35
28 GTE Am C.Ried, R.Pera, M.Campbell Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 21.315s 29
29 GTE Am S.Yoluc, E.Hankey, C.Eastwood TF Sport Aston Martin 21.522s 34
30 GTE Am J.Bergmeister, P.Lindsey, E.Perfetti Team Project 1 Porsche 21.617s 32
31 GTE Am P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 21.695s 34
32 GTE Am G.Roda, G.Roda, M.Cairoli Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 21.849s 35
33 GTE Am L.P.-Companc, M.Cressoni, M.Griffin Clearwater Racing Ferrari 22.480s 28
34 GTE Am M.Ishikawa, O.Beretta, E.Cheever MR Racing Ferrari 22.546s 33


Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Multimatic considering options after Ford's factory WEC, IMSA exit
Next article Spa WEC: Alonso puts #8 Toyota on top in wet second practice

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe