In Free Practice 1 on Thursday, Toyota 1-2, Sebastien Buemi and Jose Maria Lopez lead the No. 8 and 7 GR010 hybrids, respectively, and are the only drivers to mark 1 minute 51 seconds on a hot afternoon.
Buemi’s best was 1: 50.571, up 0.4 seconds in his sister car, and Nicolas Lapierre was the third fastest in the No. 36 Alpine A480 hypercar class, just one-tenth from Lopez.
But Alpine wasn’t the third fastest overall. For Lapierre, Antonio Felix da Costa made the best pit in the No. 38 Jota ORECA 07 LMP2 car. It was 1 minute 51.083 seconds, 0.5 seconds behind Toyota’s best time, and 0.0015 seconds at Alpine.
The second fastest LMP2 was in the hands of a Loic Duval pro, but the fastest of any professional amateur car. It was 0.129 off from Dacosta and 0.1 seconds off from Alpine.
Sean Geleal, Giedo van der Garde and Filipe Albuquerque have completed the LMP2 Top 5 in the second (No. 28) Jota, No. 29 Racing Team Nederland and No. 22 United Autosports Orecas respectively.
GTE posted the second fastest time in the combined GTE field with GTE Am and saw a storyline that appeared to be set to go through a race meeting.
Porsche factory driver Richard Lietz beat the time with the No. 91 Pro Car (1: 57.983), Matteo Cairoli was the second fastest in the GTE combined order, with the No. 56 Team Project 1 GTE AM Porsche 1: 58.177. bottom.
They are the top two in Porsche 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and No. A pair of 92 Pro Cars, Dempsey Proton GTE Amcars, and two Amaston Martins followed in order before the first Ferrari – 8th-8th fastest.
But it wasn’t a professional car. In fact, three Am-class 488 GTEs beat the fastest of the two pro cars. This is after Ferrari has made it very clear that he is dissatisfied with the BoP being offered to the car here. Power savings and minor weight adjustments that have been criticized by the Italian camp.
“We were forced to adopt a defensive strategy following the announcement of new balance of payments parameters that would disable automatic balance of payments,” Ferrari said in a media release at the pre-race conference.
However, I don’t think the FP1 pace of professional cars in particular is maximizing its potential. Some Am Ferraris have a BoP that is more disadvantageous than the Pro 488, surpassing today’s Pro cars.
