Silverstone-EL1: Porsche already in front

After the first hour and a half of driving in Great Britain, Porsche a placé ses deux 919 Hybrid at the top of the timesheet for the first free practice sessions for the 6 Hours of Silverstone, first round of the WEC 2016.

The reigning world champions Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley rose to the forefront thanks to a best time achieved in 1'42″182 and ahead of the sister car of the Jani-Lieb-Dumas trio by 0″814. The two prototypes from the Stuttgart firm were also the most diligent on the track with respectively 41 and 43 laps on the clock.

Derrière la valeur-étalon Porsche, on retrouve la Toyota Davidson TS050 Hybrid No. 5 – Buemi – Nakajima, who tested the new V6 of the Japanese LM P1 for the first time outside of testing. The latest creation from Pascal Vasselon's men climbs into the top three but is 1″583 behind the benchmark established by Porsche. Jarvis’s first Audi R18 – Duval – Di Grassi follows in fourth position ahead of the second TS050 Hybrid of Kobayashi – Sarrazin – Conway and the second Audi from Tréluyer – Fässler – Lotterer.

In private LM P1, the CLM P1/01 of Team ByKolles dominated its field with a best time of 1'48″860, enough to beat the R-One of Rebellion Racing of Kraihamer – Imperatori – Tuscher.

The latter was also preceded in the ranking by the best LM P2, the Oreca 05-Nissan of G-Drive Racing, entrusted to René Rast, Roman Rusinov and Nathanaël Berthon. With the second position in the category ofAlpine A460 from Baxi DC Racing from Cheng – Panciatici – Tung, the P2s from Var dominated their Ligier counterparts, since the first JS P2 from RGR Sport by Morand from Senna-Albuquerque-Gonzalez took third place. The No. 05 Oreca 45 from the Manor team, where we find Roberto Merhi in particular, ranks fourth.

In GTE Pro, doubled with news Ferrari 488 and their new turbo unit, with the No. 51 of the Calado – Bruni duo, which is ahead of the No. 2 of Bird – Rigon in 01’067″71. The Porsche 911 RSR of Dempsey – Proton Racing of Christensen – Lietz moved into third position ahead of the two Ford GTs of Chip Ganassi Racing of Pla – Johnson – Mücke and Tincknell – Franchitti – Priaulx. Both Aston Martin Vantage are further down the hierarchy, ahead of the first four cars in the GTE Am category, whose benchmark was set by the Ferrari 458 Italy of Rui Aguas, Emmanuel Collard and François Perrodo (AF Corse) in 2'04"093 .

Free Practice 1 Ranking