Photo : Christian VIGNON - ACO

 

The Porsche Team showed immediately that it means business – this being the first time the German manufacturer has returned to the top level of competition for decades – and it was the No.14 919 Hybrid which set the pace in this morning’s opening free practice session. Marc Lieb lapped the Silverstone circuit in a time of 1:44.042 in the car he shares with Neel Jani and Romain Dumas. Second overall was the No.1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Di Grassi-Duval-Kristensen, World Champion Loic Duval setting this car’s fastest lap, 1:44.470. Just two tenths of a second behind with a best lap of 1:44.661 was Anthony Davidson, the British Toyota driver celebrating his 35th birthday today, and will share the cockpit of the No.8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid with Nicolas Lapierre and Sébastien Buemi.

The new 2014 regulations, designed to bring the privateer LM P1 entries closer in lap time and performance to the manufacturer entries, seems to be bearing fruit as the fastest of the two Rebellion Racing Lola Toyotas, the No.12 of Prost-Heidfeld-Beche was just four tenths of a second behind the No.20 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Bernhard-Webber-Hartley. The No.13 Rebellion entry of Kraihamer-Belicchi-Leimer was a little further behind with a time of 1:46.418.

In LM P2 Roman Rusinov in the No.26 G-Drive Racing entry was the fastest this morning, the Russian setting a best lap of 1:51.004 in the Morgan-Nissan he will share with Olivier Pla and Julien Canal, seven tenths of a second ahead of the second-placed entry in this category. This was the No.27 SMP Racing ORECA 03 Nissan, Nicolas Minassian stopping the clocks at 1:51.743 – half a second ahead of the No.47 KCMG ORECA 03 Nissan from Hong Kong. Briton Richard Bradley was the pace-setter in this car.

After the first 90 minutes of free practice for the 6 Hours of Silverstone, held in sunny but breezy conditions, it was Porsche Team Manthey at the head of the time sheets in LM GTE.

In fact, Patrick Pilet in the No.91 Porsche 911 RSR was the only LM GTE driver to dip below the 2-minute mark, the Frenchman setting a fastest time in the LM GTE Pro category of 1:58.981. He shares the Porsche this weekend with Jörg Bergmeister and Nick Tandy – the Briton here (together with Richard Lietz in the No.92) as a dress rehearsal for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Marco Holzer set the second fastest time in the Pro category, 2:00.455, which was only 0.064s ahead of the No.51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia in the hands of Toni Vilander. The Finn will this year share the Ferrari with World GTE Champion Gianmaria Bruni. Only three tenths of a second behind the factory-supported Ferrari was the privateer Pro entry of Ram Racing, the No.52 recording a fastest time of 2:00.803 in the hands of Alvaro Parente.

In LM GTE Am, Ferrari held the upper hand – 2013 GP2 Championship runner up Sam Bird leading the way in the No.81 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia he shares with Michele Rugolo and Australian Steve Wyatt. The British driver set a best time of 2:01.210 – placing him amid the Pro entries – and 0.81s ahead of the No.88 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR of Bachler-Ried-Al Qubaisi. Third in class was the No.61 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia of Perez Companc-Cioci-Venturi with a best time of 2:02.033 – the Porsche and the Ferrari being separated by only one hundredth of a second. 

A second 90-minute practice session will take place this afternoon at 15:55 hrs (local time) and full results from this morning can be found HERE.

PHOTO: TOWCESTER (NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM), SILVERSTONE CIRCUIT, 6 HOURS OF SILVERSTONE, FRIDAY 18 APRIL 2014, FREE PRACTICE. The #14 Porsche was the fastest car in FP1.

From FIA WEC website