WEC – FP2: Audi drops the times at Silverstone

This morning, at the wheel of the No. 919 Porsche 14 Hybrid, Marc Lieb set the best time in the first free practice session for the 6 Hours of Silverstone., opening round of the world championshipEndurance 2014. This afternoon, Audi, the great rival, erased this time from the shelves, Lucas di Grassi covering the British track in 1'43"124. A performance to be compared to last year's absolute best lap, which was 1'42"767. Audi takes the double in this session, since at the wheel of the No. 2, André Lotterer is only 0 behind the sister car. In third place, we find the Toyota TS040 Hybrid Kazuki Nakajima, at 0 »963. The Japanese is ahead of Mark Webber (+1 »917), at the wheel of the Porsche 919 Hybrid n°20.

In LM P2, without much surprise, Olivier Pla took G-Drive Racing's #26 Morgan-Nissan to the top of the timesheet thanks to a lap completed in 1'50"401. The Toulouse driver was 0”302 ahead of Briton Richard Bradley, entered in the No. 03 KCMG Oreca 47-Nissan.

Like this morning, it was Porsche which ruled the roost in GTE Pro. But this time, it was the No. 92 of the Holzer-Makowiecki-Lietz trio who took the reference mark in 2’00”057. There Ferrari Parente-Griffin’s 458 Italia No. 52 RAM Racing follows at 0”211. Aston Martin seems to be suffering somewhat at the start of the meeting, since the fastest, the #97 of Mücke-Turner, is only sixth at 1”731 from the #92.

The GTE Am category was also dominated by the Stuttgart firm, as the No. 911 Proton Competition 88 RSR from Ried-Bachler-Al Qubaisi posted a 2'00"570. The top three in the class is completed by the No. 458 Ferrari 61 Italia of Perez Companc-Cioci-Venturi and the No. 98 Aston Martin Vantage GTE of Dalla Lana-Lamy-Nygaard.

See you tomorrow at 10 a.m. (French time) for the third and final free practice session. Qualifying will follow at 13 p.m.