The #36 Alpine A40 Gibson Hypercar of Andre Negrao topped the second 60 minute Wednesday Free Practice session ahead of the FIA WEC’s season-opening 1000 Miles of Sebring.
Negrao’s best effort of 1:50.845 was over half a second clear of the best of the rest of the Hypercar entry, this the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid. Between the pair though were no fewer than three LMP2 runners with Paul di Resta less than two tenths off the Alpine in his #23 United Autosports Oreca, edging out the sister #22 United car by less than two-hundredths of a second.
The #41 RealTeam by WRT Oreca also led the Toyota, 4th fastest overall.
The remaining pair of Hypercars were 8th (#7 Toyota) and 14th #708 Glickenhaus.
GTE-Pro saw the top times close up with Michael Christensen fastest in the #92 Porsche (1:58.488), under a tenth of a second ahead of Nick Tandy in the #64 Corvette Racing C8.R, the Corvette splitting the two factory Porsches.
David Pittard put his mark on the GTE AM standings, fastest in the session in the #98 NorthWest AMR Aston Martin Vantage GTE with a lap in 2:00.029 ahead of the #77 Dempsey Proton and #56 Project 1 Porsches.
There were two cautions in the session, the first for an on-track issue for the #45 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca, the car though made it back to pit lane.
There was trouble too between the #7. Toyota GR010 of Mike Conway and the #28 Jota Oreca of Jonathan Aberdein in the last few minutes of the session, the pair coming into contact at Turn One with a post session investigation signalled by race control.
