ELMS Official Test Days, Paul Ricard - Friday Afternoon

All 14 teams put in a lap in the second session this afternoon – Curtis Racing Technologies and Murphy Prototypes had problems earlier in the day and team members and Oreca employees worked hard to get both cars ready before the end of the day. OAK Racing ended the first day of the European Le Mans Series Official Test Days in first place.

LMP report from session 2

Boutsen Ginion Racing went out onto the track as soon as the lights went green again – everyone else stayed in the pit for the opening minutes of the second session. The second car out was the Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN, but before even being able to attack the time set by Boutsen Ginion Racing the car stopped on the Mistral straight – having run out of fuel on purpose - and the session was stopped.

In LMP2 the battle for first place was a fight between OAK Racing and Greaves Motorsport. OAK Racing was the first team that improved the fastest time set in the first session. Shortly after the Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN Nissan had gone even quicker – already 1.1 seconds quicker than last year’s LMP2 pole position at Paul Ricard – it was the OAK Racing #35 Morgan-Judd again. The fastest lap time set was a 1:46.642, 0.141 seconds quicker than the overall pole-position lap time set by Rebellion Racing in 2011.

Soon after the Greaves Motorsport Zytek stopped again on the Mistral and the session was stopped again, this time a mechanical issue. Lucas Ordonez was towed back to the pits and the session was restarted. The car didn’t return to the track, but is expected to be back in action.

In the final part of the second session the Murphy Prototypes team managed to fix the problems on their Oreca 03 Nissan and the car was sent out to put in some laps. They eventually finished the session in sixth place – their last and fastest lap a 1:51.317.

The FLM of Boutsen Ginion Racing was fastest in LMPC squeezing in right between the P2 and GT cars.

GT report from session 2

In the GTE category it was the #67 IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche that set the fastest time early in the session, whilst the new #76 Porsche was being worked on in the pitbox. AF Corse tried to beat their time, but the Ferrari 458 Italia of Perazzini, Cioci and Griffin was unable to do so and the Porsche was still on top at 6 o’clock.

After issues in the morning the JMW Motorsport Ferrari got back on track in the afternoon session – and finished the session as the second fastest GTE car on the track.

But the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 of Rob Bell and Michael Wainwright beat the GTE cars once more. After Wainwright had been lapping first Bell took over and soon posted the fastest lap of the day, a 1:58.074.

It wasn’t to be a happy day for Gulf Racing though as with just 40 minutes left in the session the #90 McLaren MP4-12C GT3 caught fire and Wainwright had to park it on the side of the track at the start of the Mistral Straight. The red flags came out for the third time and the fire was quickly extinguished, but with extinguisher in the car and the back of the car severely damaged it will not be taking any further part in the tests this weekend.