SMP Racing dominates EL1 at Spa

Under the spotlight with the arrival of Stoffel Vandoorne in its ranks this weekend at the 6 Hours of Spa, SMP Racing also shone on the track this Thursday with the best time in the first free practice session in Belgium.

At the end of a smooth session on the track, the BR1 – AER n°17, entrusted to the Russian Sergey Sirotkin, set the reference time in 1’56”264. A time to be compared with the absolute reference of the same prototype in 2018, with a better performance in qualifying established in 1’58″151.

This is good progress for the team, whose car remains operated by ART Grand Prix. SMP Racing even achieves the double since the No. 1 BR11 of Mikhail Aleshin – Stoffel Vandoorne – Vitaly Petrov, climbs to second place at 1″9, a time achieved by the Belgian beginner.

Both Toyota TS050 Hybrid n°8 d’Alonso - Buemi – Nakajima and No. 7 from Lopez – Kobayashi - Conway follow at 2″4 and 2″6. The two Japanese hybrid LM P1s are followed by the two R13 – Rebellion Racing, clocked in at 2″8 and 4″1.

In LM P2, Nicolas lapierre place theAlpine A470 n°36 – Signatech Alpine, shared with Pierre Thiriet and André negrao at the top in 2’03”441, a little less than three tenths ahead of the No. 01 Aurus 26 – G-Drive Racing of Rusinov – Vergne – van Uitert.

The top 3 in the category is completed by the Dallara P217 n°29 – Racing Team Nederland of Van Eerd – van der Garde – de Vries.

Aston Martin and Ford finish neck and neck in GTE Pro, Maxime Martin (Aston Martin Vantage no. 97) having first achieved a time of 2'15" 290 before being joined with the same time by the Ford GT no. 67 of Harry Tincknell and Andy Priaulx.

Ben Barker hisse la Porsche 911 RSR n°86 – Gulf Racing au premier rang des GTE Am en 2’17″068.

EL1 classification