Ferrari To The Top In Red Flag Shortened FP2
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.
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.
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.
Porsche has told DSC that the #5’s issue, which was a broken connection to the wheel at the driveshaft’s mounting point, has been repaired. The team is currently working on the #6 and investigating the root cause of its issue.
Cadillac Racing’s brand new #3 V-Series.R, which was finished being built up just this morning before Free Practice 1, also lost most of the session to an issue. Renger van der Zande was forced to stop the car due to a small fire after just two laps. After the session, a statement from the team revealed that the fire (put out by Renger) was caused by a “self-induced” mistake which the team was not comfortable explaining in further detail when asked by DSC. “We are going to have some extra work to do tonight,” the bulletin went on to say.
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.
There is no official update at the time of writing on the condition of either driver. DSC awaits news from AF Corse though both drivers exited their cars without outside assistance.
DSC has seen images of the cars however, the #21 sustained heavy right-side and rear-end damage, while the #54 has been seen with front-end damage.
An early report from Thomas Flohr suggests that he was hit from the rear by the #21.
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.
Free Practice 3 is next on the schedule. It’s set to get underway at 11:00am local time.
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