The entry for the Dubai weekend is down to 45 cars after a significant shunt on Thursday for the #21 Car Collection Porsche, rear damage compromising the chassis. The team are set to have a replacement delivered by the weekend and will regroup for Yas Marina the following weekend.
The first official Free Practice session on Friday morning saw an early Full Course Yellow to allow recovery of the #50 AF Corse Oreca, Jeremy Clark stopping at Turn One with an apparent broken driveshaft.
With 43 minutes remaining the session was red-flagged to allow the recovery of the #10 Manthey Porsche of Klaus Bachler and the #19 Blackthorn Aston Martin of Reema Juffalli after an incident at T3. There were no injuries to either driver and damage is understood to be limited for both.
The session was topped in bright but not stifling conditions, by Alex Quinn in the #20 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca, his 1:47.199 was under a tenth clear of James Allen in the #30 RD Limited car. The #50 AF Corse Oreca sat third at the end of the session with a time set early in the session before the cars issues outlined above.
LMP3 saw the #15 RLR MSport Ligier of Ian Aguilera top the order with a 1:55.367, again under a tenth clear of the second-fastest car in the session, the #43 Inter Europol Competition car with the #49 High Class Racing car of the debuting `Thomas Kiefer third quickest.
In GT, Lucas Auer put the #14 Climax Racing AMG on top with a 1:58.789 that was 6 tenths clear of the #77 Optimum McLaren of Marvin Kirchhöfer with Daniel Serra (#57 Car Guy Ferrari), Joel Sturm (#10 Manthey Porsche), Pro Engel (#16 Winward AMG) and Dustin Blattner (#74 Kessel Ferrari) all within a second of Auer’s session-topping time.
The 90-minute Free Practice 2 session follows at 4:45pm local.
