Inter Europol’s #43 ORECA 07 Gibson topped the timesheets in the second and final Free Practice session of the 4 Hours of Barcelona weekend ahead of Qualifying this morning.
The best time from the Polish team was a 1:28.413 set by Tom Dillman during his 17-lap stint in the car. It was the fastest lap since the two-day Prologue test earlier this week, which was held in cooler conditions.
The #43 was one of five cars that set 1:29 laps in the session, the others being the #47 from COOL Racing, the #65 from Panis Racing, the #28 from IDEC Sport and the #10 from Vector Sport. All of them lapped within half a second of Dillmann’s time.
In LMP2 Pro/Am Nielsen Racing’s #24 was the only car to set a sub-1:30 lap, after Albert Costa toured the circuit in 1:29.547 to put the car 10th on the overall leaderboard. The #3 from DKR came closest with a 1:30.306 from Laurents Horr.
Gillian Henrion was the fast driver in LMP3, steering Team Virage’s #8 Ligier to top spot on the screens with a 1:36.475, putting him three-tenths clear of the rest of the drivers in the category.
LMGT3 meanwhile saw its FP1 pattern continue, with a gaggle of Ferraris topping the times. The #86 from GR Racing led the way with a 1:40.831 set by Riccardo Pera. The Italian’s time was less than a tenth up on the Spirit of Race example that slotted in second after Matt Griffin’s efforts.
The best of the rest was the Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage. It ended up fourth, three and a half tenths off the benchmark time and just a tenth off the Kessel Racing Ferrari that completed the top three.
Further down the order, it was a promising session for Danish team Formula Racing, which has been playing catch up all week after its testing incident at Spa which forced it to sit out the Prologue and build up its car ahead of Free Practice 1. The 296 ended up seventh and within seven-tenths off GR Racing.
A 14-minute red flag, called due to a loss of power in race control, was the only significant interruption in the session.
Qualifying is up next. It will start at 14:40 local time.
