WEC Sebring 1000 Miles: Glickenhaus tops Alpine in wet FP1

Two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Romain Dumas jumped to the top of the times just before a short but heavy shower soon after the halfway point of the one-hour practice period on Wednesday.

The Frenchman posted the only time below the 1m50s mark with a 1m49.738s aboard the solo Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 LMH, which gave him a half second margin at the top of the times.

The lap vaulted Dumas ahead of the best of the Toyota GR010 HYBRIDs, which was further demoted to third by Matthieu Vaxiviere in the Alpine-Gibson A480 grandfathered LMP1 just before the shower.

Vaxiviere’s 1m50.263s just shaded Sebastien Buemi’s earlier 1m50.267s, which put the #8 Toyota third in the final times.

A wet track surface after the rain abated for the final 20 or so minutes of the session meant there were no further improvements.

The Realteam by WRT ORECA-Gibson 07 was fourth overall and fastest in LMP2 in Ferdinand Habsburg’s hands.

His 1m50.477s compared with Jose Maria Lopez’s 1m50.633s in the second Toyota in fifth position.

Prema Powerteam took sixth and second in LMP2 with a 1m51.068s from Louis Deletraz, while Paul di Resta and Rene Rast were next up in the lead United Autosports and second WRT cars respectively.

Habsburg was quickest in LMP2 in Realteam by WRT ORECA

Photo by: Paul Foster

Times were slower over the session than in last weekend’s official pre-season test at the Sebring International Raceway after the track had been washed clean of rubber by heavy storms overnight.

Habsburg was quickest across the four sessions on Saturday and Sunday with a 1m48.089s, while Nicolas Lapierre was fastest in the Hypercar class with a 1m48.497s.

Kevin Estre was quickest in GTE Pro for Porsche, his 1m58.827s putting him less than six hundredths up on team-mate Gianmaria Bruni’s 1m58.881s in the sister factory 911 RSR.

Matteo Cairoli was quickest in GTE Am for the Project 1 Porsche team on a 1m58.906, which stood as third best in GTE overall.

Tommy Milner was third in the solo Chevrolet Corvette C8.R with a 1m59.839s, which was a second off the class pace.

The two AF Corse-run Ferrari 488 GTE Evos failed to break the two-minute barrier on the way to fourth and fifth positions.

The second of the three one-hour sessions starts at 4:25pm local time at Sebring.