Thick early morning fog, a two-hour delay to track action and a packed schedule at Dubai Autodrome saw a significant change to the running order for the Asian Le Mans Series with the two planned 90-minute free practice sessions replaced by a single two-hour session later into the evening.
Two of the classes were headed by FIA WEC World Drivers Champions with reigning GTE Pro titleholder Nicki Thiim heading the first official track session in both his, and his Phoenix Racing Team’s first LMP2 meeting.
The Dane’s 1:45.487 was four-tenths quicker than another good session time from Sean Galael in the #28 JOTA Oreca with Yifei Ye (#26) and Franco Colapinto (#25) next up in the G-Drive Aurus 01s.
LMP3 saw a United Autosports 1-2, Duncan Tappy pedalling the #3 Ligier JS P320 around in 1:53.238, half a second up on the sister #23 Ligier of Wayne Boyd.
Adam Eteki in the #33 CD Sport Ligier was next up before Andy Meyrick completed the United Autosports set with fourth fastest in the #2 JS P320.
In GT it was 2017 WEC World GT Drivers Champ Alessandro Pier Guidi topping the times in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari, his 1:56.929 topping a top four comprised of times set by factory drivers from four different marques: Julien Andlauer second fastest in the #40 GPX Racing Porsche just ahead of Maxime Martin in the #88 Garage 59 Aston Martin and Raffaele Marciello in the #1 Hub Auto AMG.
