FIA WEC, 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps - Second Free Practice Report

Miraculously, the afternoon session kicked off with the track still dry, despite ominously grey clouds roiling across distant treetops. Since the earlier session the track had seen plenty of action, with an hour of practice for the Speed Series followed by forty minutes for the weekend’s second support event, the Radical Masters. The expectation was that the conditions would favour some quick times . . .

. . . but not from the Strakka HPD. After the #21 was returned to the garage following Nick Leventis’s encounter with oil at La Source during the first session, the damage was seen to extend all along one side of the car. Team Manager Piers Phillips decided to instruct a more leisurely rebuild, suggesting that any data gathered in the dry was unlikely to have any relevance to race conditions on Saturday – such is the confidence with which rain is anticipated. So, no Strakka LMP1 for afternoon practice.

The Radical Masters session had come to a premature end, with red flags heralding the arrival back in the paddock some while later of a visibly disarranged black Radical. The start of the WEC session was delayed until 16:50 as a result, while marshals effected repairs to the Blanchimont barriers.

All but eight cars joined the enthusiastic stream that flowed out onto the track again as the pitlane exit lights turned green. Within five minutes, only two hadn’t appeared; the Oak #15 and the #28 Gulf Racing Lola.

The four Audis were immediately straight back into the groove. Their opening flyers didn’t quite match the best times from the morning, but at 2:06 they were close. Fifth to show was David Brabham in the JRM HPD-ARX, the Australian driver using his lengthy experience of the HPD chassis to tempt something better out of the #22 car. Unfortunately, the car didn’t complete a whole host of laps in the first session and never managed a great deal more in the second either – more news as to why when we get it.

The first driver to better 2:06 was Oliver Jarvis in the #4 R18 Ultra, posting a 2:04.225 to prove the prediction that the second session would be quicker. His time was swiftly matched by Marcel Fassler in the #1 R18 e-tron quattro Hybrid.

For a while we had a batch of LMP2 cars holding sixth through tenth. Quickest among those was Robbie Kerr in the #25 ADR-Delta Oreca 03, posting 2:10.472 to establish a new benchmark for the class – two-tenths quicker than the fastest in the first session.

Further improvements for the Audi squad duly followed. Loic Duval set a 2:03.869 in the #3 R18 Ultra to be the first to duck under the four second bar. Ten minutes gone and Sébastien Bourdais jumped up to fifth in the Pescarolo Dome – not quite matching the petrol best from the first session, but close.

In LMP2 second-fastest fell to Sarrazin in the Starworks HPD, with the #24 Oak third, just edging out the sister car, Leinders in the #35. GTE-Pro had picked up where the earlier session ended; #71 AF Corse just ahead of the Luxury Racing F458 #59, with Marc Lieb in the #77 Felbermayr Porsche third. GTE-Am had the IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche #67 topping the times on 2:32.057 ahead of the AF Corse #81 Ferrari, and Michele Rugolo third in the Krohn F458 – a major turn-around for the lime-green #57 car, which had struggled to be in contention during the morning run.

Twenty minutes in and some significant developments came for Audi. The #3 was seen running very slowly, whereas Oliver Jarvis went faster still, posting 2:03.420 in the #4 R18 Ultra. Then the #1 R18 e-tron ybrid was spotted spinning Hyrbid

Hybrid was seen spinning off the track after Pouhon, although rejoined shortly afterwards.

An off with only three laps completed for Kevin Weeda in the #32 Lotus Lola at Rivage was suspected to have damaged the underside of the car. He headed back to the garage for a check-up, but was passed fit to run, and rejoined.

Elsewhere in LMP2, with half an hour gone, the Oak Racing #24 headed the class, with Olivier Pla performing driving duties in the Morgan Judd. The encouraging diversity of breeds in the top six continued, with Robbie Kerr’s best holding second for the ADR-Delta from Stéphane Sarrazin in the Starworks HPD. Fourth in line, and second of the Oreca 03s, was Jody Firth in the Murphy Prototypes #48. The team had planned “something radical” by way of set-up changes between session, and the bold move (which “could go either way”) seems to have had the desired effect. A 2:11.534 was satisfyingly quickest for the green and white car.

As the second period progressed, the times continued to fall. Jarvis in the #4 Ultra was 0.449 quicker than Duval in the #3, but the gap to the first of the R18 e-tron Hybrids was nearer a full second. It was a largely academic observation at this stage, but it did pose the question of which of the two variants would eventually emerge then quicker.

Fastest in the battle for petrol-powered honours came Nick Heidfeld in the #12 Rebellion Toyota . The Lola coupé was more than a second to the fore but still the best part of two seconds behind the slowest Audi. Still only 7 laps completed for the JRM HPD.

Coming on to the hour and a strange situation had developed for the Lotus squad. At one end of the scale, Kevin Weeda was still having handling problems with the #32, and had gone back to the pitlane, but the #31 had popped up at the other end of the class order, second in LMP2 (10th overall) with a new best for the Lotus Lola of 2:10.407; four tenths shy of the #24 Oak Racing Morgan and seven one-hundredth to the good of the ADR Delta Oreca Nissan. Once again, a healthy mix of marques at the top of the P2 category. Quite seriously, as many as half the 18 car field is in contention here, and it’s some years since the category looked as strong.

In GTE-Pro Darren Turner had eased the AMR Vantage V8 through to second in class, although the margin to the #77 Team Felbermayr Porsche in the top position still stood at a second. That knocked the #30 Luxury Racing F458 to third. Meanwhile, Jean-Philippe Belloc had chosen that moment to move second-quickest in GTE-Am, but nearly two seconds off the quickest time set earlier by the #67 IMSA Performance Porsche. The #61 AF Corse-Waltrip Ferrari stood third.

Almost exactly on the hour we saw the first change in overall order for some time. Allan McNish moved the #2 R18 e-tron Hybrid through to second, but then Lotterer set a new quickest outright in the #1 of 2:03.075 to place the Hybrid just ahead of the #4.

At just after six confirmation came through that the session would end five minutes short of the full 90 minutes, to meet the local mid-week noise regulations. The announcement via the timing screens prompted a fresh flurry of activity, as teams urged a final effort from their drivers, but perhaps with serious consequences for Alexander Simms in the #30 Status GP Lola, who came to grief through Raidillon, at the top of the hill above Eau Rouge. There were an additional suggestion of another incident on the exit of Blanchimont, but it was Sims’s heavy impact with the barriers at Raidillon that ended the session. The red flags were instantly shown.

At the time there was no clarification as to who was involved, and adding further to the confusion was the on-screen announcement that the manager of cars 50 and 70 (Larbre Competition) would not be allowed to leave the circuit without clearance, suggesting that the two Corvettes were under investigation for some indiscretion. We subsequently heard that Alexander Simms had been safely extracted from the car, but that the Lola had sustained extensive damage, both front and rear and the whole left-hand side. The tub stood up to the impact remarkably well, and should be fine for Le Mans, but attempting a full repair this weekend might impact on the team’s parts position for the 24 Hours. As the car is not a full-season entrant in the WEC, the team has elected to withdraw from the Spa 6 Hours . It is ironic to note that the Level 5 Lola, effectively being run by Status here last year, had a similar accident in 2011 very close to the same length of track.

The final dramas aside, one of the impressive features of the second session had been the extent of the track action. For almost the full 80 minutes, nearly every car was out on track, with typically just eight or ten pitbound at any one time. The only car not laying down the miles (apart from the Strakka HPD, of course) was the JRM HPD, while most of the rest completed a good 25 laps or more. Claiming the greatest distance was the #23 Signatech Nissan, 24th overall, and covering 32 laps.

See later posting for a full list of times.

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