The first day running of the official ELMS test days passed without any major incident at Paul Ricard today and Nathaneal Berthon setting the fastest time after two of the three sessions completed. A further two hour window of running is currently taking place and will conclude at 21.00 local time.
Berthon, who first drove the LMP2 Murphy Prototypes Oreca-Nissan at the corresponding test last season and then set pole position at the ELMS event in September, peaked at 1m48.155s. This was 0.3s off last year’s top spot but more time is expected to come from all competitors tomorrow, should they wish to show their hand of course!
Berthon’s newly announced team mates of Mark Patterson and Michael Lyons also ran today with the former getting 65 laps of track time in the open-cockpit Oreca 03-Nissan.
Second in the morning session was Harry Tincknell in the Jota Sport Gibson 015S. The current Nissan Motorsport LMP1 driver re-acquainted himself with the car that brought he and his team mates a famous Le Mans 24 Hours victory last June.
The Nissan-powered LMP2 car continued to accrue further mileage with the significantly enhanced Gibson Technologies aero package. Simon Dolan completed 73 laps this afternoon while Albuquerque notched up 41 laps.
Also enjoying a positive day was the Greaves Motorsport Gibson-Nissan with Jon Lancaster setting the second fastest time in the afternoon run. The former GP2 racer, who ran with Greaves at the 2013 Bahrain FIA WEC round, is looking to complete a deal and move in to endurance racing as his main programme in 2015.
2003 FIA Formula 3000 champion Bjorn Wirdheim was another ‘Greaves old boy’ in the cockpit today. The Swede set the third quickest time this morning as he re-familiarised with the car he took to an LMP2 podium (with Lancaster) at the 2013 Bahrain WEC event.
A particularly standout performance today was the Thiriet by TDS Racing team who put the first serious miles on the brand new Oreca 05. Tristan Gommendy set the fifth quickest time this afternoon on a 1m49.229, but perhaps the most impressive aspect after session two was the fact the car completed 105 largely trouble free laps.
Other noteworthy performances came from the Ibanez Racing Oreca 03-Nissan driven by Ivan Bellarosa. The Swiss domiciled Italian was revelatory and set a succession of quick laps that peaked at 1m49.214s delighting his team boss Jose Ibanez who contained himself to the pit wall rather than the cockpit today.
In the LMGTE class Raffaele Giammaria topped the times this morning in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia. The times were however hugely quicker this afternoon as teams got to grips with the new Dunlop tyre.
Alessandro Pier Giudi went 1.3 seconds faster than Giammaria’s early time with a 1m56.980, which in itself was just under a second faster than Adam Carroll’s 1m57.926 in the Gulf UK Racing Porsche 911 RSR. Ryan Cullen and Phil Keen each completed 14 laps this afternoon on old and new tyres. Ben Collins who was also entered will now not travel to Paul Ricard. We will have a much more in depth look at Gulf Racing UK’s plans tomorrow afternoon.
In the GTC class Eric Dermont headed the way this morning on a 1m58.311s in the TDS Racing BMW Z4 GT3. Francesco Castellaci then claimed top of the GTC class in the afternoon running on 1m58.148s in the #62 AF Corse he will share with Thomas Flohr and one S.Hall Esq, who will get his first laps in a Ferrari 458 Italia tomorrow since driving teh Dragonspeed example last season.
The only incident of note was at the end of the morning session when Mikhail Aleshin suffered a puncture and was stranded out on the circuit in the Oreca 03-Nissan. The recovery necessitated the morning session being shortened slightly by ten minutes.
(Additional note, Harry Tincknell popped in a time in the night session to put the Jota Gibson into the 1:48 club – 1:48.957 Aleshin came close to that mark late on in the #37 SMP Racing Oreca in a session that saw only 12 cars take to the track)
