The 2023 season of the FIA World Endurance Championship can be said to have officially begun with the Sebring Prologue, which this morning opened the ball in Florida for all the protagonists of the World Championship.
Today and tomorrow, in fact, four collective test sessions are scheduled (divided into two per day morning/afternoon) to begin preparing for next week’s 1000 Miglia and the first three hours held under the sun saw teams and drivers lap a lot. with the race direction briefly displaying the red flag at the start of the session and also simulating a Safety Car entry towards the end.
The classification was drawn up in ‘Endurance mode’, ie taking into account the number of km put together through the sessions carried out and not the chronometric times established by the conductors of the various crews.
In the Hypercar class, therefore, Toyota and Porsche are at the top, but if we look at the timed times, the GR010 Hybrids made a gap by printing a 1’48″208 with the #7 and a 1’48″293 with the #8 reigning champion, trimming over 1″ to all.
The #2 Cadillac prepared by Chip Ganassi Racing is third after waiting a long time in the pits in the early stages and only putting together laps in the second part, jumping ahead of the #5 Porsche 963 in terms of times, which is 1″4 from the leader.
Ferrari finally makes its debut with the 499P obtaining the Top5 in 1’49″724 with the #51, while the #50 is seventh in 1’50″182. The Reds tuned by AF Corse completed 61 and 48 laps respectively, and Porsche #6 is among them.
Still looking at the times, the Peugeots didn’t go beyond eighth and ninth place, even getting 3″, glickenhaus #708 and Vanwall #4 driven by ByKolles were the best laps and performers.
Ferrari 499P LMH
Photo by: Ferrari
In the LMP2 Class, the best time was obtained by Oreca 07-Gibson #22 of United Autosports in 1’51″722 (the tenth overall), just 0″030 ahead of the #41 of Team WRT, which is the one with the most laps of all the participants with 77 total laps.
So did his ‘little sister’ #31, who is fifth in the category behind Jota #48 and Prema Racing #63, with the #9 twin of the latter sixth, half a second off the pace.
The #10 of Vector Sport, whose fin features the Isotta Fraschini logo, is eighth keeping behind the United #23, Jota #28 and the copy of Lapine, with Inter Europol Competition #34 closing the list.
Finally, coming to the LMGTE AM, excellent performances for the Porsches of Iron Dames and Iron Lynx: the girls place the #85 in front in 1’59″913, followed by the #60 and the AF Corse Ferrari #54 just a few cents away of the group.
In the Top5 of the times there are also the Corvette #33 and the Porsche #77 of Dempsey Proton Racing, very close to the rivals ahead of them; the 911 is the one to have driven the most with 75 passages to its credit.
The Richard Mille AF Corse #83 Ferrari follows sixth, the Project 1 (#56) and Proton Competition (#88) Porsches, and the AF Corse (#21) and Kessel Racing (#57) Ferraris, enclosed in the space 0″8 from the summit.
The ranking is completed by the #86 Porsche of GR Racing, first of the cars over a second behind, and the three Aston Martins of NorthWest AMR (#98), ORT by TF Sport (#25) and D’Station Racing/TF (# 777) further away.
Now a short lunch break and then at 19.30 Italian time we start again with another 180′ of effort.
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