Tuesday Night session
Stefano Coletti topped the times in the 2 hour night practice session at Paul Ricard from 7-9pm on Tuesday in the #32 SMP Racing BR01, the Italian posting a 1:48.745 to relegate Simon Dolan’s early session time to second fastest.
Michael Lyons put the Murphy Oreca fourth fastest after little track time in the daytime sessions for the #48.
Just 21 cars took to the track for the session, including just 8 of the LMP3 field that will see no night running in the ELMS this season.
The octet though was topped by the #10 Graff Racing Ligier, Sean Rayhall posting a 1:55.632 ahead of the #5 by Speed factory and #9 Graff Ligiers.
Just three GTEs ran in the session, the #51 AF Corse Ferrari of Marco Cioci topping the trio, a 1:58.542 edging Aaron Scott back to second fastest in the #55 AF Corse 458.
Good news late yesterday too from the Oak Racing squad was that Erikc Maris, sent to hospital for checks after a heavy accident at T7 in the #Ligier JS P3, was reported to have check out as being fine and released.
Wednesday Morning Session
Another four hour session, and it was the #46 Thiriet by TDS Racing Oreca that claimed the honour of topping two sessions, a 1:48.569 just edging out (by less than three hundredths, the early session time of Greaves new boy Kuba Giermaziak in the #41 Ligier Nissan with the #40 Krohn Ligier third, a tenth back and the #38 G-Drive Gibson fourth.
The #16 Panis-Barthez Ligier topped the times in LMP3, 1:53.908 edging out Matt Bell in the #3 United Autosports car by less than a tenth with Dino Lunardi a similar gap in arrears in third.
GT was again topped by the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 1:57.252 ahead of the sister #55 Ferrari and with the #60 Formula racing and #66 JMW 458s completing a Ferrari 1,2,3,4
The guesting Kox Racing Ligier and ARC Bratislava Ginetta left overnight with the incoming Audi team taking over those garages and the #4 Oak Racing Ligier would play no further part in the test after the accident on Tuesday for Erik Maris.
There was better news though for eEurasia, they completed a 28 lap shakedown for their new #33 Oreca 05 Nissan finishing the session 11th fastest.
Wednesday Afternoon Session
Rain arrived (of the bouncing variety) in the final hour of track action meaning we saw little on-track action in the final 40 minutes or so of the three hour session.
The session was topped, again, by the #46 Thiriet by TDS Oreca, Pierre Thiriet this time in the car with a 1:48.569.
That prevented what we believe might have been the first ever ELMS track session to have been topped overall by a female driver, Ines Taittinger putting together a great string of laps to grab the top spot in the #29 Pegasus Morgan Nissan before the #46 intervened. Taittinger’s 1:49.736 was, in any case, good enough for second fastest in the session ahead of Harry Tincknell in the G-Drive Gibson and #22 SO24! Ligier.
LMP3 saw the #19 Duqueine Engineering Ligier top the class times 1:55.368 ahead of the #11 Eurointernational car and #9 Graff Ligier.
GTE saw Rory Butcher on top in the #66 JMW Ferrari (1:57.897) ahead of the #55 Griffin/ Cameron/ Scott AF Corse 458 and #77 Proton Porsche of Renger van der Zande.
