The #52 AF Corse Ferrari of Adrien de Leener, Cedric Sbirrazzuoli, Raffaelle Gianmaria and Toni Vilander went quickest in the first free practice session of the 2015 Spa 24 Hours. A 2:30.300 by Toni Vilander was enough at this early stage of the weekend to top the screens.
AF Corse’s #47 Ferrari came in second quickest, just 0.048 off the #52, with Vilander’s WEC team-mate Gianmaria Bruni driving. The first of the Pro Cup runners – the #45 Marc VDS BMW – ended up third overall.
The session was relatively quiet, with the track improving slightly during the 90 minutes. The #45 VDS BMW was fastest after Nick Catsburg and Augusto Farfus put up some early flyers and the #59 Von Ryan McLaren also showed pace early when Alvaro Parente was at the wheel.
HTP’s #84 Bentley of Harold Primat, Vincent Abril and Mike Parisy ended the session second in the Pro Cup, fifth overall and 0.375 seconds off the session’s best time. Rounding out the top three in the headline class was the sole remaining #99 ROWE Racing Mercedes, a further two tenths back.
Quickest in the Am Cup, and by a sizeable margin of 2.5 seconds, was the Team Parker Racing Audi R8 of Julian Westwood, Ian Loggie, Callum Macleod and Benny Simonsen. The team’s fastest lap, a 2:21.148, came from McLeod put them an impressive eighth overall.
There were a couple of notable incidents during the practice. The #58 Von Ryan Racing McLaren 650S was spotted in the pit-lane with the right-rear wheel loose and a brief red flag period was called after Christophe Bourret went off midway through the session at Blanchimont in the Am Cup AKKA ASP Ferrari, damaging its rear end. Bourret managed to escape the tyres pretty quickly, however, and the session resumed without too much delay.
This session marked the first time that the race officials were handing out stop-go penalties to teams during free practice rather than nullifying lap-times for abusing track limits. It’s a new system, designed to be more of a genuine penalty, as it disrupt the teams’ running. It caught out five drivers, with Nico Verdonck being pulled up twice in the Black Falcon Mercedes.
Stephen Kilbey
