Heavy rain appeared for the first time in around two weeks in Malaysia just in the for the start fo Free Practice 1 at Sepang. 22 of the 23 cars saw at least some running though the literal ebb and flow of the rainfall saw some very quiet times on track and the session as a whole seeing a number of cars completing very limited running.
The session was red-flagged 8 minutes early after Roberto Mehri lost the rear of the #36 Eurasia Ligier Gibson that left the car deep in the gravel at Turn 3, a sweeping right-hander, the car recovered to the track with some light left rear damage.
The session was headed though by a Ligier one-two, the #34 Inter Europol car, in the hands of Mathias Beche, topping the times with a 2:12.915, half a second clear of the #1 Eurasia New Zealand Racing Ligier with the returning #96 K2 Uchino racing ORECA third quickest.
Dan Wells led the LMP3 class in the debuting #18 Inter Europol Ligier JSP3 with a 2:18.748, half. Second his gap ahead of the best effort for the #12 ACE1 Villorba Corsa Ligier with the #2 Nielsen Racing Norma third quickest.
Davide Rigon led the GT runners in the #27 HubAuto Ferrari with a 2:22.740, a tenth ahead of the #51 Spirit of Race 488 GT3 of Alessandro Pier Guidi with Ross Gunn a couple of hundredths further back in the #77 D’Station Aston Martin Vantage GT3.
Free Practice 2 takes place later this evening, under the lights, getting underway at 8 pm local time with both Qualifying and the race taking place tomorrow. All three sessions are available live in sound and vision on the Series’ YouTube and Facebook pages.
