WEC: Ferrari tops Friday practice at Spa

Ferrari AF Corse’s pair of 499Ps topped the times in the second practice session of the FIA WEC meeting at Spa this afternoon, the #51 finishing up 1.2 seconds quicker than the #50 sister car after a 2:01.871 from Antonio Giovanazzi. It’s the fastest time of the weekend so far, and almost a second quicker than last year’s pole time.

#51 Ferrari 499P

Third in the times during what turned out to be an incident-filled session, disrupted by two red flags and three full-course yellows, was the #2 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, which set a best time of 2:03.338. The quickest of the Toyotas was the FP1-topping #8, which slotted in fourth with a 2:04.380.

#50 Ferrari 499P

It was a messy 90 minutes for more than one of the Hypercar teams. Porsche Penske Motorsport’s pair of 963s managed a combined seven laps after issues early in the running. The #5 stopped on the Kemmel Straight at the hands of Dane Cameron with a driveshaft issue, while the No. 6 had a hybrid system failure at La Source which required a reset. Neither car would go on to set more laps after their respective issues.

The most significant incident though came with 14 minutes remaining in the session, when the #21 and #54 GTE Am class Ferrari 488s had a huge off at Raidillon. The cars, driven by Diego Alessi and Thomas Flohr respectively, were damaged severely after contact with the barriers on driver’s right.

In LMP2 Team WRT’s #31 ORECA set the pace with a 2:06.108 from Robin Frijns, who was quicker than the six of the 13 Hypercar class cars.

United Autosports #22 and the #41 sister WRT ORECA completed the top three with times four and five-tenths off the Dutchman.

The #54 AF Corse Ferrari, which was damaged in the Raidillon incident, led GTE Am with a 2:15.736 from Davide Rigon. The #57 Kessel Ferrari and GR Racing Porsche finished the day second and third.

#54 Ferrari

Friday Top Times

POS TEAM / DRIVERS NO. CAR TIME BEHIND GAP
1ST
Ferrari AF Corse

Pier Guidi A. Calado J. Giovinazzi A.

#51
Ferrari 499P 2:01.871
2ND
Ferrari AF Corse

Fuoco A. Molina M. Nielsen N.

#50
Ferrari 499P 2:03.149 +1.278 +1.278
3RD
Cadillac Racing

Bamber E. Lynn A. Westbrook R.

#2
Cadillac V-Series.R 2:03.338 +1.467 +0.189
4TH
Toyota Gazoo Racing

Buemi S. Hartley B. Hirakawa R.

#8
Toyota GR010 HYBRID 2:04.380 +2.509 +1.042
5TH
Peugeot Totalenergies

Di Resta P. Jensen M. Vergne J.

#93
PEUGEOT 9X8 2:05.180 +3.309 +0.800
6TH
Glickenhaus Racing

Dumas R. Pla O. Mailleux F.

#708
Glickenhaus 007 2:05.545 +3.674 +0.365
7TH
Toyota Gazoo Racing

Conway M. Kobayashi K. Lopez J.

#7
Toyota GR010 HYBRID 2:05.729 +3.858 +0.184
8TH
Team Wrt

Gelael S. Habsburg F. Frijns R.

#31
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:06.108 +4.237 +0.379
9TH
Peugeot Totalenergies

Duval L. Menezes G. Muller N.

#94
PEUGEOT 9X8 2:06.128 +4.257 +0.020
10TH
United Autosports

Lubin F. Hanson P. Albuquerque F.

#22
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:06.518 +4.647 +0.390
11TH
Team Wrt

Andrade R. Kubica R. Deletraz L.

#41
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:06.633 +4.762 +0.115
12TH
Hertz Team Jota

Felix Da Costa A. Stevens W. Ye Y.

#38
Porsche 963 2:06.711 +4.840 +0.078
13TH
Inter Europol Competition

Smiechowski J. Scherer F. Costa A.

#34
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:06.759 +4.888 +0.048
14TH
Vector Sport

Cullen R. Kaiser M. Aubry G.

#10
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:06.791 +4.920 +0.032
15TH
Prema Racing

Ugran F. Viscaal B. Caldarelli A.

#9
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:06.933 +5.062 +0.142
16TH
United Autosports

Pierson J. Blomqvist T. Jarvis O.

#23
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:07.086 +5.215 +0.153
17TH
Prema Racing

Pin D. Bortolotti M. Kvyat D.

#63
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:07.145 +5.274 +0.059
18TH
Jota

Heinemeier-Hansson D. Fittipaldi P. Rasmussen O.

#28
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:07.167 +5.296 +0.022
19TH
Alpine Elf Team

Vaxiviere M. Canal J. Milesi C.

#36
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:07.914 +6.043 +0.747
20TH
Floyd Vanwall Racing Team

Dillmann T. Guerrieri E. Villeneuve J.

#4
Vanwall Vandervell 680 2:08.557 +6.686 +0.643
21ST
Alpine Elf Team

Negrão A. Rojas M. Caldwell O.

#35
Oreca 07 - Gibson 2:08.969 +7.098 +0.412
22ND
Porsche Penske Motorsport

Estre K. Lotterer A. Vanthoor L.

#6
Porsche 963 2:10.875 +9.004 +1.906
23RD
AF Corse

Flohr T. Castellacci F. Rigon D.

#54
Ferrari 488 GTE Evo 2:15.736 +13.865 +4.861
24TH
Kessel Racing

Kimura T. Huffaker S. Serra D.

#57
Ferrari 488 GTE Evo 2:16.786 +14.915 +1.050
25TH
Gr Racing

Wainwright M. Pera R. Barker B.

#86
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2:16.993 +15.122 +0.207
26TH
Proton Competition

Hardwick R. Robichon Z. Tincknell H.

#88
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2:17.172 +15.301 +0.179
27TH
Richard Mille AF Corse

Perez Companc L. Wadoux L. Rovera A.

#83
Ferrari 488 GTE Evo 2:17.230 +15.359 +0.058
28TH
Cadillac Racing

Bourdais S. Van Der Zande R. Aitken J.

#3
Cadillac V-Series.R 2:17.364 +15.493 +0.134
29TH
Iron Lynx

Schiavoni C. Cressoni M. Picariello A.

#60
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2:17.437 +15.566 +0.073
30TH
Iron Dames

Bovy S. Gatting M. Frey R.

#85
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2:17.532 +15.661 +0.095
31ST
AF Corse

Alessi D. Mann S. De Pauw U.

#21
Ferrari 488 GTE Evo 2:17.585 +15.714 +0.053
32ND
Project 1 – Ao

Hyett P. Jeannette G. Cairoli M.

#56
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2:17.802 +15.931 +0.217
33RD
Porsche Penske Motorsport

Cameron D. Christensen M. Makowiecki F.

#5
Porsche 963 2:17.818 +15.947 +0.016
34TH
D’station Racing

Hoshino S. Stevenson C. Fujii T.

#777
Aston Martin VANTAGE AMR 2:17.941 +16.070 +0.123
35TH
Ort By Tf

Al Harthy A. Dinan M. Eastwood C.

#25
Aston Martin VANTAGE AMR 2:18.053 +16.182 +0.112
36TH
Dempsey – Proton Racing

Ried C. Pedersen M. Andlauer J.

#77
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2:18.278 +16.407 +0.225
37TH
Northwest Amr

James I. Mancinelli D. Riberas A.

#98
Aston Martin VANTAGE AMR 2:18.671 +16.800 +0.393
38TH
Corvette Racing

Keating B. Varrone N. Catsburg N.

#33
Chevrolet Corvette C8.R 2:19.163 +17.292 +0.492