ELMS, Imola - Free Practice 1
Ciao Piaggio Conditions were eerily similar to Silverstone’s round one on Friday morning. Heavy skies had just finished depositing a considerable amount of water on the circuit before the first track action began at noon. The situation improved throughout the session, to the extent that intermediates and even cut slicks were being deployed to make the most of a clear dry line that had emerged by the end. Conditions off that line were still very difficult however, so with the prospects of a totally dry afternoon practice session and dry race tomorrow there was little point risking everything in going for a still compromised time today. We didn’t learn a great deal, given the quick times all tumbling in together at the end from some perhaps rather unlikely drivers, but everyone appears to have survived unscathed, which is no mean feat on a wet Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari. Given the elevation changes and nature of the track, many drivers knew to expect standing and indeed running water at first, so it took a while before the times really started to come in. Ragues for Signatech and Thiriet for TDS were pushing other at the head of P2 through the wet running in the low 1:52s, whilst the GTCs were faster than the GTEs again, like they had been at Silverstone in the very wet conditions. ABS is certainly a rather fine invention. Imola-virgin Frankie Montecalvo was doing a good job of “working out where it goes left and where it goes right” and led the GTE charge initially from Griffin in the sister RAM Racing Ferrari. Roda and Long then displaced the Ferraris to make it a Porsche 1-2 in the drying conditions in the 2:02s. Griffin re-took the best in class before handing over to Mowlem.  |
A four minute red flag period was the result of Hirschi’s pretty Lola coupe (with more than a hint of Pescarolo livery about it) taking a trip into the gravel at Villeneuve with just over half the session run. JMW used this time to install Bertolini and a set of cold intermediates (no tyre warmers allowed in this series) and once they were up to temperature his times were good enough for him to sit a very fine fifth overall at one point with a 1:49.941. This would improve to a 1:48.583 but the P2 cars were going quicker still by then, so it was 8th overall for the quickest car in GTE by the chequered flag. Cioci and Roda rounded out the top 10 with their late efforts. The quickest times in GTC had been traded throughout the session but Shaitar was emerging well ahead of the others in the final 10 minutes, the Russian finishing on a 1:53.079 with only Ecurie Ecosse getting within two seconds on a 1:53.826. All three entrants in the LMPC class had led at some point in the session but it was Matthieu Lecuyer who set the fastest time, only to run too deep into Variante Villeneuve on his next lap, through the gravel and leave the car stranded. This brought the yellow flags out for the dying minutes and perhaps curtailed a few final improvements. Beche finished the quickest man for the #1 TDS, but it was something of a lottery because the quickest time was changing several times a minute: “We were on inters at the end, slicks were probably the right choice but we’re not sure what others were doing. We don’t have time to worry about things like that at the moment, we have a lot to focus on. I only knew I was coming back to the team last weekend and I am finding it difficult to come back to P2. It is really different and I don’t feel that I am back at my best in it yet, even though we finished a second ahead of anyone else just now. It is good to be back, but it is a tight weekend because I am racing the BMW in the French series this weekend too.” Certainly TDS had been strong throughout, but so had Jota, Murphy, Signatech, Greaves, Race Performance and Morand (who have signed Olivier Lombard for Le Mans). Warmth and sunshine have filled the paddock since and Free Practice 2 should be a lot more meaningful. Paul Slinger | 
