Practice report
WEC Spa-Francorchamps (2019)
Spa WEC: Sirotkin leads SMP 1-2 in first practice
Sergey Sirotkin led SMP Racing teammate and fellow ex-Formula 1 racer Stoffel Vandoorne in the opening practice session for this weekend's Spa FIA World Endurance Championship round.
Jamie Klein
Edited: May 2, 2019, 12:26 PM
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Sirotkin, who made his WEC debut for SMP in the Sebring 1000 Miles, set a laptime of 1m56.264s in the #17 BR Engineering BR1-AER with just under 30 minutes of the 90-minute session remaining.
That followed Vandoorne's lap of 1m58.236s in the sister #11 car, which had the Belgian head of the times and half a second up on the two Toyota TS050 Hybrids.
SMP's surge pushed the Toyotas down to third and fourth places, with early pacesetter Sebastien Buemi's 1m58.742s putting the #8 car 2.478s off the pace.
Mike Conway was a further four tenths down in the #7 machine and only two tenths up on the quickest of the Rebellion R-13s, the #3 of Gustavo Menezes.
Bruno Senna followed in sixth place in the second of the Rebellions, 4.171s down on Sirotkin.
Seventh overall was the best of the LMP2s, the newly-Michelin-shod Signatech Alpine Oreca entry of Andre Negrao.
The Brazilian driver's 2m03.441s put the #36 car ahead of early pacesetter Jean-Eric Vergne in the Aurus-badged G-Drive Racing Oreca, as well as the remaining LMP1, the ByKolles ENSO CLM P1/01.
Tom Dillmann set the best lap in the Gibson-powered #4 car, more than seven seconds slower the overall benchmark.
GTE Pro was headed by Aston Martin, courtesy of a 2m15.290s laptime from local driver Maxime Martin at the wheel of the #97 Vantage GTE.
Harry Tincknell's last-ditch effort in the quicker of the Ford GTs was identical, but the #67 was classified second, ahead of Antonio Felix da Costa in the #82 BMW M8 GTE.
Ford and Aston Martin's respective second cars were fourth and fifth, ahead of the #81 BMW, while Porsche's pair of 911 RSRs filled out seventh and eighth ahead of the two Ferrari 488 GTEs.
An early lap from Ben Barker put Gulf Racing at the head of the GTE Am times in the Gulf Racing Porsche, less than a tenth ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella in the Spirit of Race Ferrari.
The TF Sport Aston Martin was black-flagged for "constant track limits abuse" while Euan Hankey, returning to the team for the first time since last year's Le Mans 24 Hours, was at the wheel.
Practice results:
Cla # Drivers Car Class Time Gap 1 17 Stéphane Sarrazin
Egor Orudzhev
Sergey Sirotkin
BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'56.264 2 11 Mikhail Aleshin
Vitaly Petrov
Stoffel Vandoorne
BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'58.236 1.972 3 8 Sébastien Buemi
Kazuki Nakajima
Fernando Alonso
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'58.742 2.478 4 7 Mike Conway
Kamui Kobayashi
Jose Maria Lopez
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'58.877 2.613 5 3 Nathanael Berthon
Thomas Laurent
Gustavo Menezes
Rebellion R13 LMP1 1'59.106 2.842 6 1 Neel Jani
Andre Lotterer
Bruno Senna
Rebellion R13 LMP1 2'00.435 4.171 7 36 Nicolas Lapierre
Andre Negrao
Pierre Thiriet
Alpine A470 LMP2 2'03.441 7.177 8 26 Roman Rusinov
Job Van Uitert
Jean-Eric Vergne
Aurus 01 LMP2 2'03.677 7.413 9 4 Tom Dillmann
Oliver Webb
Paolo Ruberti
ENSO CLM P1/01 LMP1 2'03.891 7.627 10 29 Frits van Eerd
Giedo van der Garde
Nyck de Vries
Dallara P217 LMP2 2'04.349 8.085 11 31 Roberto Gonzalez
Pastor Maldonado
Anthony Davidson
Oreca 07 LMP2 2'04.496 8.232 12 38 Ho-Pin Tung
Gabriel Aubry
Stéphane Richelmi
Oreca 07 LMP2 2'04.616 8.352 13 37 David Heinemeier Hansson
Jordan King
Will Stevens
Oreca 07 LMP2 2'04.907 8.643 14 28 François Perrodo
Matthieu Vaxiviere
Norman Nato
Oreca 07 LMP2 2'04.909 8.645 15 50 Erwin Creed
Romano Ricci
Nicholas Boulle
Ligier JSP 217 LMP2 2'06.603 10.339 16 97 Alex Lynn
Maxime Martin
Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE PRO 2'15.290 19.026 17 67 Andy Priaulx
Harry Tincknell
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 2'15.290 19.026 18 82 Augusto Farfus
Antonio Felix da Costa
BMW M8 GTE LMGTE PRO 2'15.406 19.142 19 66 Stefan Mücke
Olivier Pla
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 2'15.648 19.384 20 95 Marco Sorensen
Nicki Thiim
Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE PRO 2'16.254 19.990 21 81 Martin Tomczyk
Nick Catsburg
BMW M8 GTE LMGTE PRO 2'16.311 20.047 22 91 Richard Lietz
Gianmaria Bruni
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 2'16.330 20.066 23 92 Michael Christensen
Kevin Estre
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 2'16.489 20.225 24 51 Alessandro Pier Guidi
James Calado
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 2'16.499 20.235 25 71 Davide Rigon
Sam Bird
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 2'16.701 20.437 26 86 Michael Wainwright
Benjamin Barker
Thomas Preining
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 2'17.068 20.804 27 54 Thomas Flohr
Francesco Castellacci
Giancarlo Fisichella
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'17.138 20.874 28 77 Christian Ried
Riccardo Pera
Matthew Campbell
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 2'17.579 21.315 29 90 Salih Yoluc
Euan Hankey
Charles Eastwood
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 2'17.786 21.522 30 56 Jörg Bergmeister
Patrick Lindsey
Egidio Perfetti
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 2'17.881 21.617 31 98 Paul Dalla Lana
Pedro Lamy
Mathias Lauda
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 2'17.959 21.695 32 88 Gianluca Roda
Giorgio Roda
Matteo Cairoli
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 2'18.113 21.849 33 61 Luis Perez Companc
Matteo Cressoni
Matthew Griffin
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'18.744 22.480 34 70 Motoaki Ishikawa
Olivier Beretta
Eddie Cheever III
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'18.810 22.546 View full results
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