United Autosports’ home round of the European Le Mans Series got off to a strong start in this afternoon’s Free Practice 1, with its #22 ORECA 07 – Gibson LMP2 topping the timesheets.
Ben Hanley set a 1:44.964 inside the opening 20 minutes of the session, surpassing the #28 IDEC Sport ORECA of Job van Uitert by 0.124 seconds.
These times proved good enough to hold on to the top two positions for the duration of FP1.
The #43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA was third, ahead of the #18 IDEC Sport, #25 Algarve Pro Racing and #29 Forestier Racing by Panis efforts.
Seventh overall, and quickest in LMP2 Pro/Am, was the #20 Algarve Pro Racing ORECA of Malthe Jakobsen courtesy of a 1:45.402 in the closing minutes of the session.
This placed the Peugeot Hypercar driver 0.059 seconds faster than the long-time class-leading #27 Nielsen Racing ORECA of Alex Quinn, with the #83 AF Corse, #47 CLX Motorsport and #7 Vector Sport ORECAs completing the top five.
In LMP3, Louis Iglesias set the fastest time aboard the #17 CLX Motorsport Ligier JS P325 – Toyota.
The young Frenchman ended up 0.144 seconds ahead of the #8 Team Virage, #11 Eurointernational, #35 Ultimate and #13 Inter Europol Competition Ligiers.
And in LMGT3, Tom Sargent’s early benchmark held throughout the session, with the Australian’s 1:59.505 securing the #75 Proton Competition Porsche 911 GT3 R (992.2) LMGT3 the top spot.
The #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo was 0.040 seconds behind in second, ahead of the #50 Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari. The #23 United Autosports McLaren LMGT3 Evo was fourth fastest, with the #33 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R in fifth.
The session was interrupted by a pair of Red Flags, the first of which coming shortly before the 30-minute mark when Pierre Alexandre Provost stopped at Woodcote, a wheel missing from his #85 R-ace GP Duqueine LMP3. The car returned to the track later in the session.
The second, more significant, stoppage came 20 minutes later, due to a multi-car incident at Becketts. Bijoy Garg’s #34 Inter Europol Competition ORECA, PJ Hyett’s #99 AO by TF ORECA and Custodio Toledo’s #50 Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari were all involved, with the American the only one able to return to the pits under his own steam.
Both the #34 ORECA and #50 Ferrari sustained heavy front end damage, with the 15 minutes lost as they were retrieved added back on to the session.
The #19 Rossa Racing by Virage ORECA completed the most laps in FP1, 44.
The next ELMS track action at Silverstone is the Bronze Driver Collective Test at 16:15 BST, whilst full-field running resumes with Free Practice 2 at 9:55 BST tomorrow morning.
Image courtesy of David Lord
