Damp, gloomy and with light drizzle, the weekend’s first session got underway at 9am; cars raising high plumes of spray as they took to the track.
Things were, understandably, a little slow to get going, with some fairly nervous, twitchy opening laps. Just how challenging this was became clear a mere seven minutes into the session, with the first (admittedly minor) off, and swift recovery, for the #40 Krohn Racing Ligier. Those setting the quicker times were circulating around the 2:15 mark, with Pierre Thiriet in the TDS Oreca quickest with a 2:13.068, and just half a dozen cars had yet to show.
Thirteen minutes gone and the Murphy Prototypes #48, part-way through its out-lap, ploughed heavily off the track at Stowe, Irishman Damien Faulkner in the cockpit of the Oreca Nissan – we would later discover that he’d suffered a complete lock-up of the rear brakes and had little choice in what happened next. This brought out the red flags and the session came to a brief 10-minute halt. Although stranded, structural damage appeared to be light, and the car was ferried back to the pits on a flatbed.
With the weight of cars steadily clearing a dryer line, it would never get ‘dry’, times did start to improve. Harry Tincknell, beginning what will be a busy weekend for the G-Drive/Ford Ganassi driver, took to the top of the screens with a 2:12.172 aboard the #38 Gibson-Nissan.
In LMP3, Lunardi headed the times, easing the #19 Duqueine Engineering Ligier ahead of Alex Brundle’s United Autosports Ligier, quickest before the break. Their efforts were then eclipsed by Matthew Bell in the second United Autosports car, the #3, just three seconds shy of Tincknell’s P2 best.
Just over half an hour had been completed when Julien Canal moved to the top slot for Greaves (#41), posting a 2:09.234, swiftly followed by Matthias Beche in the Thiriet (#46), two-tenths adrift.
In an event dominated by prototypes, it is all too easy to forget that there are some GTE entries in the ELMS this season, albeit a mere nine for Silverstone. At the mid-way stage, five of these had still yet to appear on track, but fastest of the rest was Andrew Howard in the #99 AMR V8 Vantage, his best of 2:21.752 just three-tenths to the good of the #77 Proton Competition Porsche RSR 991.
A full-course yellow was called at 09:38 to allow marshals to retrieve an errant bollard, and give teams a chance to pit and effect a few driver changes. Bjorn Wirdheim stepped aboard the Krohn Ligier-Nissan (this weekend receiving technical and logistical support from Greaves Motorsport) and track action resumed at 09:45… only to stop again almost immediately.
This second red flag was waved for Tristan Gommendy in the Eurasia Motorsport Oreca 05 #33. The P2 had been running fifth on a 2:12.261. Reports had Gommendy swiftly out of the cockpit, but with some damage to the car (below):
The track re-opened at 09:54, with little improvement in conditions. Beche was first through to start another quick and perhaps clearer lap, with less spray to cloud his view. With drivers struggling to get any heat into the tyres times were never going to be rapid, but instantly Beche punched half a second off his previous best, clocking 2:08.679 to move ahead of Canal.
Also showing strongly was Stefano Coletti in the #32 BR 01 of SMP Racing, sneaking into third, 1.3 seconds adrift of Beche but a mere tenth behind the Greaves Ligier.
Well into the second half of the 90-minute session and the quickest of the LMP3 cars was still the #19 Duqueine Engineering Ligier, Lunardi’s time having improved slightly to a 2:13.329, but plenty good enough for eighth overall, somewhere near the midfield of LMP2. The #2 United Autosports Ligier stood second (10th overall) and the #18 M Racing Ligier JS P3 third (14th).
With 25 minutes remaining, just two cars had yet to complete full laps, the Murphy Prototypes #48 and the #55 AF Corse F458. Laursen had only managed a single lap in the #60 Formula Racing F458, and the #66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari had managed just two, but most of the rest were circulating strongly.
At 10:10am, the #40 Krohn Ligier was into the gravel at Brooklands, Tracy Krohn having just taken over the controls from Wirdheim, who’d posted a 2:12.261 to ease the lime-green P2 into 7th. A full-course yellow followed as the car was hauled back out onto the track, it was well buried.
The session resumed at 10:20am with less than 10 minutes left to run. The skies had brightened slightly, but the track remained just as slippery as it had been since the lights turned green. To add to the challenge, Krohn’s excursion at Brooklands had left gravel across the track and through Luffield, and this was reflected in the remaining times, few of which matched earlier bests.
There were a handful of exceptions, from Simon Dolan in the #38 (2:10.263) and, in LMP3, Wayne Boyd for United Autosports #3, posting a 2:15.192 to regain third in class. No change in GTE, with the #99 Aston holding top slot to the flag.
Just before the chequered flag, a 2:11.970 from Paul Loup Chatin snuck the #23 Panis Barthez Competition Ligier into 7th, and the #48 Murphy finally appeared on track again, one final fling clocking 2:16.452, the car’s only proper flying lap, but enough for Damien Faulkner to save face with 19th overall, narrowly out-pacing the #29 Morgan (25 laps completed) to claim penultimate position in P2.
So ended the first full session of the 2016 European Le Mans Series. Under the circumstances, with difficult conditions and no dry running, there’s little to be drawn from such an unrepresentative session, but the sight of such a generous grid of P2 and P3 cars bodes well for the season.
A possible explanation for the poor showing, in terms of on-track laps, from the majority of GTE teams came from an observation that most had only been issued with three sets of full-wet tyres to last the whole weekend, and they seemed less than keen to squander these on a dismal practice session. Only the #55 failed to complete any laps at all.
