Saturday 5 September 2015

Mistral wind takes part in Saturday practice sessions at Paul Ricard

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).