Rossa Racing by Virage topped the times in this morning’s four-hour European Le Mans Series pre-season test session, as the second day of running at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain, got underway.
Rik Koen set a 1:29.330 aboard the #19 ORECA 07 – Gibson, leading a 1-2-3 in the combined order for LMP2 Pro/Am runners.
Second fastest, 0.177 seconds off the top spot, was the #3 DKR Engineering ORECA of Marlon Hernandez, with James Allen completing the top three in the #27 Nielsen Racing entry.
The best of the LMP2 competitors, in fourth overall, was the #28 IDEC Sport ORECA of Paul-Loup Chatin, with a 1:29.649.
Three more Pro/Am cars, the #30 Duqueine Team, #83 AF Corse and #7 Vector Sport ORECAs, came next, with the #24 Nielsen Racing effort the second-best of the LMP2 entries in eighth overall.
Team Virage’s #8 Ligier JS P325 – Toyota was fastest in LMP3, after Daniel Nogales set a 1:37.688. This put the car 0.474 seconds clear of the #5 Rinaldi Racing Ligier, with the #17 CLX Motorsport Ligier in third.
The #85 R-ace GP Duqueine and #11 Eurointernational Ligier completed the top five.
In LMGT3, High Class Racing once again topped the times, following an early flyer from Laurun Heinrich aboard the #54 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992.2) LMGT3. The German set a 1:41.760, which went unbeaten throughout the remainder of the morning.
Kessel Racing’s pair of Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evos came closest, in second and third, with the #57 entry of Mathys Jaubert heading the sister #74 effort of Fran Rueda, as both cars finished under one tenth of a second behind the #54 Porsche.
The #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari was fourth, ahead of Proton Competition’s pair of Porsches.
The session was interrupted by three red flags. The first was brought out by the #43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA of Jakub Smiechowski, who had an incident at Turn 11 at the start of the second hour.
The second, with under 90 minutes to go, was deployed shortly after the #22 United Autosports ORECA pitted and suffered an engine bay fire in its pit box. The fire was put out rapidly, and a spokesperson for United has confirmed to DSC that everybody is ok. The team is currently assessing the damage to the car looking into the root cause of the fire.
A third and final red flag came with 33 minutes remaining when Nick Yelloly in the #43 Inter Europol ORECA limped past the pit lane and stopped with what looked like a loose front-right wheel.
Other cars to run into trouble included the #62 Team Qatar by Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG, which stopped at pit exit, and the #50 Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari, which briefly stopped out on track in the third hour. The #63 Iron Lynx AMG also ground to a halt at Turn 4 in the closing minutes of the session.
In better news, the #83 AF Corse LMP2 Pro/Am ORECA turned 89 laps. The Italian team made up for lost time with a new engine installed after missing the majority of yesterday’s running with a suspected throttle sensor issue.
Running at this year’s official pre-season test concludes with three hours of track time this afternoon.
