Panis Racing’s #65 ORECA topped the times in Free Practice 2 this morning in Imola with the fastest time of the week.
Charles Milesi’s 1:30.885 made him the first (and only) driver to dip into the 1:30s so far. It put the French team’s prototype 0.363 clear of the rest of the LMP2 pack.
It wasn’t a completely clean session for the team though, as its car caused a red flag after stopping at Turn 11. Manuel Maldonado was aboard and brought the session to a premature end with two minutes on the clock.
The #47 COOL Racing ORECA, which now has Ferdinand Habsburg in its line-up after the Austrian missed the opening rounds due to injury, ended up second in the times. Frederik Vesti set its best lap, a 1:31.248.
The #34 Inter Europol ORECA ended up third after setting the fastest FP1 time. The sister car would slot in fourth, with the #14 AO by TF example completing the top five.
As usual, it was extremely tight in the times, with the top eight cars all lapping within a second.
The quickest LMP2 Pro/Am runner, the #20 Algarve Pro Racing ORECA, took 11th in the overall leaderboard with a 1:32.243 from Alex Quinn, who also set the Pro/Am pace in FP1 yesterday.
In LMP3, WTM by Rinaldi put a Duqueine M30 on top. Oscar Tunjo set the time, a 1:39.541, the only sub 1:40 lap in the class in the session.
The #8 Ligier from Team Virage took second, with Eurointernational third.
Inter Europol’s #88 Ligier finished up with the fourth fastest time but was limited to just 25 laps after Alex Bukhantsov suffered an off and stopped, bringing out a full-course yellow. Thankfully the damage was minor and cosmetic.
Kessel Racing led the way in LMGT3, with Daniel Serra touring the circuit in 1:42.588 aboard the team’s #57 Ferrari 296 LMGT3.
Three Ferraris ended up in the top four, with the Formula Racing and JMW 296s taking third and fourth on the leaderboard. Splitting them was the #60 Proton Competition Porsche, with a 1:42.683.
Qualifying is up next, at 14:35 local time.
