ELMS – Oreca Fastest in Wet Free Practice at Imola

The first Free Practice session of the weekend in Italy was interrupted by two red flags as rain presented the drivers with some tricky driving conditions.

The first interruption came early on in the 90-minute session when the GTC class no68 Massive Motorsport Aston Martin driven by Kristian Poulsen went off at turn 3, causing a Full Course Yellow (FCY) to be declared.

The second FCY was declared at 45 minutes into the session when the LMP3 class no15 SVK by Speed Factory Ginetta-Nissan of Jesus Fuster went off at T15 but this was changed to a red flag when the car was considered to be in a dangerous position.

The session was extended by 15 minutes to compensate for the stoppage but another red flag was declared when there was contact between the no11 Lanan Racing Ginetta and no48 Murphy Prototypes Oreca-Nissan at T15, meaning debris had to be cleared from the track. The session went green again with 30 minutes remaining on the clock and the rain starting to fall again.

As the chequered flag fell it was the no46 Thiriet by TDS Racing Oreca 05-Nissan that was at the top of the timing sheets with Pierre Thiriet setting a 1m41.531 lap of the 4.9km Imola circuit.

The championship leading Greaves Motorsport Gibson-Nissan of Jon Lancaster was just 0.082 seconds slower with a 1m41.613 lap, with the no29 Pegasus Racing Morgan of Julien Schell setting the third fastest time, a further 1.4 seconds behind the Gibson Nissan.

The first non LMP2 runner was the AF Corse run GTC Class Ferrari of Marco Cioci in 10th overall, with a 1m48.938 lap, nearly two seconds faster than the quickest LMGTE class car, the no56 AT Racing Ferrari 458 of Alessandro Pier Guidi in 12th overall.

The two Team LNT run Ginetta-Nissans headed the LMP3 class, with Charlie Robertson leading the way with a 1m54.670 lap.

The second Free Practice session will start at 15h00 CET.