Blue skies and a strong Mistral wind over the Paul Ricard circuit on Saturday for both free practice sessions ahead of the 6 Hours of Le Castellet.
The
morning session was dominated by the #21 AF Racing (ex SMP)
BR01-Nissan, ahead of Murphy Prototypes Oreca03. The Murphy team
always scores well at Paul Ricard, winning the race in 2013. The #41
Greaves Gibson was third fastest, ahead of the green Ligier JSP2 of
Tracy Krohn. In LMP3 both Team LNT Ginetta's were fastest with the
#2 outpacing #3. The #15 SVK by Speed Factory was third fastest,
almost 2 seconds off the pace.
LMGTE
saw 2 Ferrari's at the top of the timetable with the #51 AF Corse
just faster than the #56 AT Racing Ferrari F458 Italia. The BMW Z4 GTE
by Marc VDS was third fastest in the morning session. GTC was
dominated by Thiriet with their #59 BMW Z4, outpacing the #68 Aston
Martin and #62 AF Corse Ferrari with almost 2 seconds.
In
the afternoon, Thiriet by TDS Racing took the honours and lapped
quicker than anyone else. With the Mistral wind blowing even harder
than this morning giving the cars a big tail wind on the Mistral
(what's in a name) straight, Tristan Gommendy put in a very fast
1.47.837. Behind the Thiriet Oreca, the Krohn Ligier-Judd with Olivier Pla at the wheel was second
fastest, ahead of the Gibson of JOTA Sport. Eurasia Motorsport who
already impressed at the Red Bull Ring last month were fourth fastest
and continue to show their good form.
LMP3
saw the same result as Saturday morning with the #2 ahead of #3. This time however the LMP3's didn't manage to hold off the
GTE's, with the Ferrari's of AT Racing (#56) and AF Corse (#55)
switching places compared to this morning, ahead of the two fastest
LMP3's. Proton Competition was third fastest in GTE with the #17
Porsche 911 RSR. In GTC we also saw 2 Ferrari's on top, the #63 AF
Corse 1.3 seconds faster than the #62 sister car. TDS Racing,
fastest this morning, was third in the afternoon.
Qualifying
is Sunday from 9.00h, the 4 Hours of Le Castellet will start at 13.00h (local time).
