Spa WEC: United Autosports LMP2 fastest in first practice

Albuquerque continued his pace-setting form in the opening 90-minute session aboard the United Oreca 07, setting a 2m04.083s around the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

That was a couple of tenths up on his best lap in the official pre-season Prologue test at Spa at the beginning of this week in which he topped the times in two of the four sessions.

The fastest of the cars running in the Hypercar class was the grandfathered Alpine A480 LMP1 car, in which Matthieu Vaxiviere posted a 2m04.335s lap to end up second in the overall classification.

The two Toyota Le Mans Hypercars took seventh and 10th in the times in amongst the LMP2 pack.

Quickest of the Toyota GR010 Hybrids was the #7 entry in the hands of Mike Conway. His 2m04.574s was marginally faster than Sebastien Buemi had managed in the sister car when he went fastest during a qualifying run in the closing session of the Prologue on Tuesday afternoon.

Kazuki Nakajima was four tenths in arrears of Conway on a 2m04.947s in FP1.

Third place in the times went to the TDS Racing-run RealTeam squad, Norman Nato setting a 2m04.071s in the team's P2 Oreca before the car stopped out on track.

A 2m04.475s from Stoffel Vandoorne was good enough for fourth in his JOTA Oreca.

Ben Hanley was less than one hundredth of a second behind in fifth aboard DragonSpeed's Oreca, while Giedo van der Garde took sixth for Racing Team Nederland.

Porsche maintained its monopoly on the top spot in GTE Pro from the Prologue, Kevin Estre setting a 2m13.466s.

That was quicker than all the laps he posted during the official test apart from a 12m12.916s on Tuesday morning during a qualifying simulation run.

Richard Lietz was second in class in the second of the Manthey-run 911 RSR-19, his 2m13.500s leaving him just under four hundredths behind the sister car.

The first of the AF Corse Ferraris was right behind the second of the Porsches in Alessandro Pier Guidi's hands.

The Italian's 2m13.520s was two tenths up on a 2m13.715s from Miguel Molina in the second of the factory Ferrari 488 GTE Evos.

The solo Chevrolet Corvette C8.R brought up the rear of the five-car field with a time nearly a second off the pace.

Matteo Cairoli was quickest in GTE Am with a 2m13.941s in his Project 1 Porsche.

The WEC Spa 6 Hours starts on Saturday May 1 at 1.30pm CET, with practice and qualifying scheduled on Thursday and Friday. All sessions of the event will be streamed live on Motorsport.tv. 

Practice results:

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	22	Philip Hanson Fabio Scherer Filipe Albuquerque	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'04.083
2	36	Andre Negrao Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere	Alpine A480	HYPERCAR	2'04.335	0.252
3	70	Esteban Garcia Loic Duval Norman Nato	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'04.471	0.388
4	28	Sean Gelael Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'04.475	0.392
5	21	Henrik Hedman Juan Pablo Montoya Ben Hanley	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'04.482	0.399
6	29	Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'04.491	0.408
7	7	Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	2'04.574	0.491
8	34	Jakub Smiechowski Renger van der Zande Alex Brundle	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'04.826	0.743
9	26	Roman Rusinov Franco Colapinto Nyck de Vries	Aurus 01	LMP2	2'04.869	0.786
10	8	Sébastien Buemi Kazuki Nakajima Brendon Hartley	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	2'04.947	0.864
11	31	Robin Frijns Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'05.011	0.928
12	24	Patrick Kelly Gabriel Aubry Simon Trummer	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'05.346	1.263
13	25	John Falb Rui Andrade Roberto Merhi	Aurus 01	LMP2	2'05.376	1.293
14	20	Jan Magnussen Anders Fjordbach Dennis Andersen	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'06.014	1.931
15	38	Roberto Gonzalez Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'06.948	2.865
16	1	Tatiana Calderon Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser	Oreca 07	LMP2	2'07.071	2.988
17	44	Miro Konopka Tom Jackson Darren Burke	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	2'09.487	5.404
18	92	Kevin Estre Neel Jani	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	2'13.466	9.383
19	91	Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	2'13.500	9.417
20	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	2'13.520	9.437
21	52	Daniel Serra Miguel Molina	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	2'13.715	9.632
22	56	Egidio Perfetti Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	2'13.941	9.858
23	77	Christian Ried Jaxon Evans Matt Campbell	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	2'14.228	10.145
24	63	Antonio Garcia Oliver Gavin	Chevrolet Corvette C8.R	LMGTE PRO	2'14.405	10.322
25	88	Andrew Haryanto Marco Seefried Alessio Picariello	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	2'14.558	10.475
26	60	Claudio Schiavoni Andrea Piccini Matteo Cressoni	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'14.623	10.540
27	98	Paul Dalla Lana Augusto Farfus Marcos Gomes	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	2'14.677	10.594
28	85	Rahel Frey Katherine Legge Manuela Gostner	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'14.687	10.604
29	54	Thomas Flohr Francesco Castellacci Giancarlo Fisichella	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'14.712	10.629
30	33	Ben Keating Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	2'14.744	10.661
31	47	Roberto Lacorte Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'14.763	10.680
32	86	Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	2'14.805	10.722
33	83	François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'15.203	11.120
34	777	Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Andrew Watson	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	2'15.788	11.705
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