Matt Campbell is fastest as the chequered flag waves in Free Practice 1 of the Lone Star Le Mans, round six of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
In Austin, the sky was cloudy this morning, suggesting that the weekend forecast could be spot on with regards to possible rain and thunderstorms.
The temperature was still 30°C when the cars started the Circuit Of The Americas and the 90 minutes of activity were interrupted twice by an initial red flag and then by a Full Course Yellow test which in total took away 20 minutes from the protagonists to push on the accelerator (who then had an additional 5 minutes to recover).
Also considering that tyre degradation will have to be carefully assessed, some drivers immediately preferred to put together as many laps as possible to fix the set-up and in the end some of them improved and climbed the rankings, as in the case of the Australian.
The Porsche Penske Motorsport driver was able to climb to the top of the HYPERCAR class with a time of 1’53″574, snatching the lead from Robert Kubica, who had been ahead for a long time aboard the yellow 499P #83 prepared by AF Corse, by just 0″017 ahead of the #38 Jota 963 featuring the new livery.
In fourth and fifth place, with a margin of more than 0.5 seconds from the top, are the official Ferraris #50 and #51, followed by the Cadillac and the Porsche #6 of Team Penske, which left behind the BMWs #20 and #15 managed by Team WRT.
Completing the top 10 is the #7 Toyota with a clear 1″ delay, while the #8 GR010 Hybrid stops 15th at 1″4 behind the two Alpines and ahead of the Peugeot pair.
Lamborghini is in 12th place, with the Porsches of Jota #12 and Proton #99 11th and 18th respectively, the latter 2.1s behind.
#15 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello, Marco Wittmann
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
In the LMGT3 class, Alessio Rovera immediately took the lead in 2’09″857 with the #55 AF Corse Ferrari, leaving behind the #88 and #77 Proton Competition Ford Mustangs.
Also in the top five are the #81 and #82 TF Sport Corvettes with gaps of more than half a second, as well as the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin which is sixth, ahead of the #95 United Autosports McLaren.
Eighth fastest, 0.9s behind, was the #777 Aston Martin of D’Station Racing, ahead of the #46 Team WRT BMW on which Valentino Rossi completed 14 laps, stopping 1s off the best time set by his colleague Maxime Martin.
The Akkodis-ASP Lexuses are in 12th and 14th place, the Lamborghinis in 15th and 17th, even if the #60 Iron Lynx stopped on the track with Claudio Schiavoni at the wheel. The Porsches do not go beyond the 16th and 18th time with delays of around 2″.
Free Practice 2 will take place at 17:10 local time (00:10 on Saturday in Italy), also lasting 90 minutes.
#WEC #Austin #Free #Practice #Campbell #Porsche #finale