The Alpine Endurance Team took a turn at the front with its pair of A424s in the second WEC practice session today at Spa-Francorchamps.
Jules Gounon was the fast man for ‘Les Bleus’, posting a 2:01.816 in the #36. He was the only driver to set a sub-2:02 lap in the Hypercar field, making him comfortably the fastest driver of the day.
The #35 sister Alpine ended up second in the running order, a fraction under three tenths off, with the #20 BMW picking up the mantle of ‘best of the rest’ after a 2:02.179 from Sheldon van der Linde.
Rounding out the top five were the #009 Aston Martin and the #15 BMW, both within six tenths of the benchmark time.
The #50 Ferrari 499P, which paced the field in the opening practice session, finished the day with the sixth-fastest time, a 2:02.381, an improvement over Antonio Fuoco’s best earlier in the day. The Imola-winning Toyota was 13th with a best time 1.5 seconds off after 33 laps.
In the LMGT3 ranks, Heart of Racing team’s #23 Aston Martin Vantage claimed the prime spot on the timing screens after multiple flyers from Dudu Barrichello. His best tour was a 2:17.769, set just before handing over to the team’s Bronze, Gray Newell, for some qualifying prep.
Racing Team Turkey’s Corvette, driven rapidly by Peter Dempsey early on, was next up, two tenths off, with the #79 Iron Lynx AMG, #21 Vista AF Ferrari and #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus third, fourth and fifth.
The #78 was quick, but did hit trouble, causing the second of two red flags during the session in the closing stages, when Tom Van Rompuy pulled off the track at the Bus Stop after losing a wheel.
The first stoppage, meanwhile, was called for debris clearance at La Source and Les Combes.
Next on the agenda is Free Practice 3 at 10:10 local time tomorrow morning.
Featured image courtesy of DPPI
