Estoril, FP1: Pescarolo lays down a marker

This weekend, the Pescarolo team and Rebellion Racing are fighting for the Le Mans Series LM P1 title, and the French team got its weekend off to a good start for the Estoril 6 Hours. Emmanuel Collard whittled his times down from 1m 34.798s to 1m 31.938s putting the French car in front of the two Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyotas.

The teams have a lot of work to do as the Portuguese circuit has nothing in common with Silverstone so they have to start from zero. “You can’t compare it to Silverstone. Estoril is a twisty track with a lot of bumps and very few quick sections,” explained Collard. “You have to preserve your tyres and work on traction. We’re doing well at the moment.”

The Strakka Racing HPD-ARX 01d topped the time sheets for most of the session in LM P2, until young Frenchman Olivier Lombard put in a flyer to go quickest in 1m 33.103s. The English team has made a good start to continue its string of victories and bag the title.

In Formula Le Mans, the leaders also dominated with Pegasus Racing’s Patrick Simon coming out on top with a lap in 1m 39.480s.

The Porsche-Ferrari battle raged in LM GTE Pro, and finally Bob Bell’s JMW Motorsport Ferrari F458 Italia was quickest in 1m 40.851s after Richard Lietz in the Felbermayr-Proton 997 led the category for a long time.

The very quick Nicolas Armindo in the IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche 997 again topped the time sheets in LM GTE AM beating several of the cars in the Pro category! He took over from Raymond Narac, who was already fastest, and finished the session with a blinding lap in 1m 41.527s!

Next session starts at 17h30.