WEC Spa: Giovinazzi leads Ferrari 1-2 in second practice
Ferrari are quickest by a margin following FP2 for this weekend's 6 hour race. Toyota are unusually a few seconds off the pace. Personally I believe that they must be working more on a race setup than out and out 'PR' laptimes.... I for one wont be surprised to see them back in their customary position that we saw at Portimao. Good to see the Cadillac's and also the Peugeot showing themselves to be a bit nearer the pace.
FP2 finished under a red which curtailed the session a little earlier than planned.
Giovinazzi’s #51 499P Le Mans Hypercar dipped under the benchmark time set in opening practice by Sebastien Buemi’s #8 Toyota GR010 LMH, posting a best lap of 2m01.871s.
That proved 1.278s faster than Molina in the second Ferrari, which spent much of the first half of the session in the garage before its 2m03.149s lap.
Earl Bamber put the #2 Chip Ganassi Racing-run Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh third with a 2m003.338s early in the 90-minute session before the first of two red flags triggered as two Hypercars hit trouble.
The sister Ganassi #3 Cadillac which is contesting the full IMSA SportsCar Championship season and making a WEC cameo at Spa stopped on track in Renger van der Zande’s hands at the same time as Dane Cameron’s #5 Penske-run Porsche 963 LMDh lost power.
The second works Porsche also lost track time as Andre Lotterer stopped the #6 machine with hybrid problems.
Ryo Hirakawa improved to fourth in the lead #8 Toyota shortly before the second red flag caused by an incident involving the GTE Am Ferrari 488 GTE Evos of Thomas Flohr and Diego Alessi at Raidillon.
The Japanese logged a 2m04.380s which was 2.509s off the outright pace and over a second slower than its FP1 effort.
Jean-Eric Vergne put the first of the Peugeot 9X8 LMHs into fifth on a 2m05.180s ahead of the garagiste Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 of Olivier Pla.
The second Toyota, the #7 in which Kamui Kobayashi managed a 2m05.729s, was 3.858s down on the Ferrari in seventh but comfortably clear of Nico Muller’s #94 Peugeot and Jota’s customer 963.
A 2m06.711s lap from Ye Yifei was 2.337s faster than the car managed in Will Stevens’ hands in FP1 as the team continues to blood in its newly-arrived machine following its preliminary shakedown at Weissach last week.
The Vanwall Vandervell 680 LMH was the last of the Hypercars to set a representative time, as Jacques Villeneuve punched in a 2m.08.557s shortly before the stoppage.
In LMP2, Robin Frijns set the pace in the #31 WRT ORECA-Gibson 07, going 0.410s quicker than Filipe Albuquerque’s #22 United Autosports example.
The Portuguese, who returns to the cockpit after missing the last round in Portimao on IMSA duty at Long Beach, couldn’t match the 2m06.108s lap from 2022 outright podium finisher Frijns.
Louis Deletraz put the #41 WRT ORECA third, ahead of Fabio Scherer (InterEuropol Competition) and Gabriel Aubry’s Vector Sport example.
Prior to Flohr’s crash, Davide Rigon had moved the #54 AF Corse Ferrari to the head of the GTE Am timesheets with a 2m15.736s lap.
His fellow factory driver Daniel Serra settled into second, 1.050s in arrears, aboard the #57 Kessel Racing machine while Riccardo Pera (GR Racing) put the best of the Porsches third.
Hmmm... well it wasnt a Toyota 1-2. Hartley going off into the fence in the #8 at the start of qualy.... maybe the lack of tyre warmers I dont know. Anyway Ferrari were showing fastest as qualy ended and then a couple of minutes later the #7 Toyota showed on pole so I am guessing a late flyer from Kamui got the job done. Either that or a Ferrari losing a lap time to a (track limits?) penalty. Have to wait to see what gets reported.
I think it was Gio fastest initially but he is now showing 3rd so I suspect a penalty
The JOTA (Porsche) was impressive beating one of the factory (Penske) Porsches and both Peugeots. The times at the top are certainly getting closer so maybe it wont be a Toyota walkover in the race
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
Ouch, that was fairly major. Thats not going to buff out and be back on track! Fortunately Renger walked away, and came out of it better than the car. What man built man can mend.
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
Crikey that was all a bit tense..... a 5 second penalty to the #7 given on the final lap. Fortunately the #7 had 15 secs in hand. They deserved the win without doubt.
Also the final outright podium spot changing on the last lap.
That penalty was in the air for over half an hour. No urgency in getting penalty decisions made in a timely manner.. There were loads of descisions pending right to the end. Most of them are surely black or white penalty or not decisions. They dont need an hour to decide.
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
