Ben Hanley’s late session effort saw the #21 10Star/DragonSpeed Oreca 07 top the first session times at the European Le Mans Series Prologue at Monza.
The session saw the first laps around Monza outside private testing for contemporary LMP cars since the last visit of the Le Mans Series in 2008 with Hanley’s session topping 1:37.834 almost exactly the same as the fastest race laps from the third placed LMP1 Pescarolo, faster than the LMP2 winning Essex Porsche RS Spyder and almost matching Jos Verstappen’s best in the van Merksteijn car.
The DragonSpeed time edged out the best effort by Andrea Pizzitola in the #25 Algarve Pro Ligier (1:37.975) with the #G-Drive by DragonSpeed third fastest in the hands of Ryo Hirakawa (1:37.989)
Anders Fjordbach set the fastest Dallara time in the #49 High Class Racing P217, 1:39.071, 8th fastest.
Fastest in straight line speed was another Oreca, the all carbon #40 Graff Racing car crossed the speed trap at 301.7 km/h!
All 13 LMP2 cars set times in the session.
LMP3 saw a Ligier 1,2,3, the fastest Norma proving to be the #10 Oregon Team M30, 9th fastest in class with the car in the hands of Davide Roda, though that car brought out a red flag mid session, the car delivered back to the pit lane with damage to the front-left corner after a mistake under braking at Parabolica by Dario Capitano, the car with two wheels on the grass and then into the barriers. The team will miss the remainder of the day’s action, with no spares available here.
Fastest in the session was one of the new additions to the entry, the #9 AT Racing Ligier with a 1:45.813 edging out Giorgio Mondini’s best effort in the #11 EuroInternational JSP3 by just 2 thousandths of a second.
Wayne Boyd was third fastest in the #3 United Autosports Ligier a further two tenths back.
In GT it was an all Aston Martin affair, the #90 TF Sport Vantage GTE putting in a 1:48.720 in the hands of reigning WEC Drivers Champ Nicki Thiim, the 2016 Championship winning #99 car second fastest with a 1:49.237 for Darren Turner.
TF Sport driver Rob Bell, in his first Aston Martin GTE drive since 2015 said: “The car feels completely different with the new aero package. I was pleasantly surprised by the pace and feel of it. It’’s a step up from the car two years ago.”
The #51 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE was third quickest, this by the way the first time other than a one-off test at Aragon that the 488 GTE has tested on Dunlop rubber! 1:50.972 the best effort by Andrea Bertolini.
Six of the seven GT cars took to the track in the three hour session, just the #88 Proton Porsche staying in the box throughout.
