Prologue – Day 1: The No. 7 Toyota in the lead at midday, storm at Sebring

The sky fell over the former Sebring military airport. While the platoon of WEC had the opportunity to test himself in preparation for the first round of the season, a storm hit the landing strips of the circuit where the 1000 Miles of Sebring. The session was logically interrupted one hour before the scheduled end. 

🌧 Rain is currently stopping proceedings at the moment here in Sebring.

We've had some good running this morning though…#BeUnited @FIAWEC @sebringraceway pic.twitter.com/HMjRs8SHlG

— United Autosports (@UnitedAutosport) March 12, 2022

In the ranking, it is unsurprisingly one Toyota which was at the top. No. 7 of Mike conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria López set the best time in 1:51.223. An LM P2 slipped into second place this morning with the #41 of Realteam by WRT of Rui Andrade, Ferdinand Habsburg and Norman Nato 0.417 seconds behind. The Oreca 07 thus beat the second Hypercar in the general classification, that ofAlpine. André Négrão, Nicolas lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere were in third place before the red flag, 0.472 behind the Toyota. WRT is already in good shape, since the Belgian team placed its reigning champion car at the foot of the podium, in the same second as the sister car. Prema (Lorenzo Colombo, Louis Delétraz, Robert Kubica) took third time in the LM P2 category, still within the same second. Sébastien Ogier completed his first laps on the Florida circuit with Richard Mille Racing Team. The French team finished the morning in ninth place, in 1:52.488.

You have to go down outside the top 10 to find the second Toyota GR010 Hybrid. No. 8 of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa took eleventh place, 1.343 behind the sister car. At Glickenhaus, only 14 laps were completed by Olivier Pla, Romain Dumas and Ryan Briscoe. The SCG 007 LMH completed its best lap in 1:57.462, which places it in 18th position, just ahead of the GTE Pro where the Porsche No. 92 of Kévin Estre and Michael Christensen was the fastest in 1:58.543 despite stopping at the end of the session. The second Porsche (Richard Lietz, Gianmaria Bruni) and the Corvette C8.R of Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy completed the podium. Finally, in GTE Pro, it was Team Project 1 which finished at the top of the timesheet with the No. 46 of Matteo Cairoli, Mikkel Pedersen and Nicolas Leutwiller, the last to arrive in the crew.

The second session of the day is scheduled for 20:25 p.m. French time. If time allows it to go smoothly.

Find the rankings for the morning HERE

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