WEC Sebring 1000 Miles: Alpine fastest in FP2
Alpine claimed the top spot in second free practice for the opening round of the World Endurance Championship at Sebring on Friday.
The Alpine-Gibson A480 grandfathered LMP1 sat at the head of the classification for the majority of the session on Wednesday afternoon.
Andre Negrao went quickest with a 1m50.845s early on in the one-hour practice period, before Matthieu Vaxiviere improved by three tenths in the closing minutes.
The Frenchman got down to a 1m50.512s, which was still some way short of the 1m49.738s with which he had topped the Hypercar class classification in the opening session.
Vaxiviere’s afternoon mark gave the Alpine a half second margin over the two United Autosports LMP2 ORECAs, which ended up second and third overall in the hands of Paul di Resta and Filipe Albuquerque.
Albuquerque sat second in the times with a 1m51.058s until right at the end when di Resta got down to a 1m51.040s in his ORECA-Gibson 07 to take the top spot in P2.
The #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid had been second until a 1m51.015s set by Brendon Hartley early on was wiped out for a pitlane speeding infringement. That demoted to car to fifth position with a 1m51.380s, also set by Hartley, behind the Realteam by WRT ORECA of Ferdinand Habsburg on a 1m51.244s.
Sixth place went to Prema Powerteam’s ORECA courtesy of a 1m51.395s from Robert Kubica.
The second WRT P2 entry ended up seventh with a 1m51.446s from Rene Rast, while Jose Maria Lopez was eighth in the second Toyota with a 1m53.503s.
The Glickenhaus 007 LMH, which had been fastest in FP1 in Romain Dumas’s hands, ended up down in 14th position more than a second and a half off the pace with a 1m52.479s from Ryan Briscoe.
#92 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR - 19: Michael Christensen, Kevin Estre
Photo by: Paul Foster
Porsche heads GTE Pro from Corvette
The #92 Porsche 911 RSR again headed the GTE Pro times, this time with Michael Christensen at the wheel. He posted a 1m58.448s to end up less than one hundredth of a second clear of Nick Tandy in the solo Chevrolet Corvette C8.R.
The Briton’s 1m58.580s put him four tenths clear of the second Porsche in which Richard Lietz set a best lap of 1m58.889s, which was almost identical to team-mate Gianmaria Bruni’s mark from session one.
The two AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evos again brought up the rear and failed to break the two-minute mark.
WEC debutant David Pittard ended up quickest in GTE Am in the Northwest AMR Aston Martin. The Briton’s time of 2m00.029s in the Prodrive-run Vantage GTE put him just over a tenth up on fellow countryman Harry Tincknell in the best of the Dempsey Proton Porsches.
Practice continues on Thursday with the final of the three 60-minute practice sessions at 11:55am local time before qualifying for Friday’s Sebring 1000 Miles begins at 7:00pm.
Watch WEC 1000 Miles of Sebring qualifying and the race live on Motorsport.tv (geo-restrictions may apply).
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