WRT and Porsche set the pace in Sebring
Final day of Prologue testing for the FIA WEC showcases the competitiveness in each class
The second day of the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Prologue testing at Sebring International Raceway got underway with the morning session once again giving the LMP2 contenders a chance to shine.
Topping the order at the mid-point in the day was the Oreca 07 entered by Realteam by WRT driven by Ferdinand Habsburg. The car that he will share with Rui Andrade, and Norman Nato stopped the clocks with a time of 1 minute 48.089 seconds on the 6.019 km circuit; just 0.283s faster than the similar WRT entry for Sean Gelael, Robin Frijns and René Rast.
Third fastest was another Oreca 07 entered by United Autosports for Philip Hanson, Felipe Albuquerque and Will Owen in a session where all eight of the fastest cars were covered by less than a second.
Alpine set the pace among the premier Hypercar class entries in fourth fastest overall with their A480 that is being shared by André Nagrão, Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxivierre. The Toyota GR010-Hybrid of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa was the second fastest in the class, ninth overall.
Among the production-based GT teams, it was once again Porsche which held sway in the LMGTE Pro category The Porsche GT Team’s 911 RSR-19 driven by Michael Christensen posted a time just over a second faster than the works Corvette C8.R’s fastest in the hands of Tommy Milner.
Porsche also topped the LMGTE Am timesheets with the Dempsey-Proton entry being driven by Sebastien Priaulx just shading the similar car entered by Team Project 1 by less than one thousandth of a second.
The final Prologue testing session will run this afternoon. The cars and teams will remain in Florida for the opening round of the 2022 FIA WEC season, the 1000 Miles of Sebring, on March 18.
