With the sun now out at Paul Ricard and the circuit dry, the field ran far quicker in today’s Afternoon Session at the ELMS Prologue, the #21 DragonSpeed ORECA 07 setting a 1:41.769, over two seconds faster than the best time set in the running this morning.
The lap came courtesy of Nicolas Lapierre, the Frenchman three tenths up on the #28 IDEC Sport and #26 G-Drive Racing ORECAs which ended up slotting in second and third overall respectively. It was set after the car underwent repairs for damage sustained from an incident earlier in the day, the off caused by a car spinning in front of it.
Further back, the #39 Graff ORECA 07, which topped the opening session, could only manage eighth, with a 1:42.735.
LMP3 meanwhile, was topped by DKR Engineering and its controversial all-Silver line-up, with a 1:51.819 by reigning Le Mans Cup champion Alex Toril, two tenths faster than the best time in the Ultimate M30 set by Matthieu Lahaye. The highest placed Ligier ended up third, the #2 United Autosports JS P2 finishing up with 62 laps, and a best lap of 1:52.188
Notably, the #2 United Autosports Ligier, which topped Session 1, did manage to get 42 laps in, after the car had to be towed into the paddock following a drive-shaft failure earlier in the day, and worked on by the team.
In GTE, the #88 Proton Competition Porsche proved to be the fastest once again, Gianluca Roda bettering his Session 1 time of 1:56.548 with a 1:54.628 in the class which saw only four of the seven cars on the list set times.
Gulf Racing isn’t testing, and the Ebimotors and sister Proton Porsches are too badly damaged to compete, the latter appearing to have had its week ended early after a big shunt.
