Le Mans Series, Estoril - Friday Free Practice 1 Report

A few clouds in the pale blue sky and a steady north-westerly breeze were all that prevented this from being a perfect morning, although at around 22 degrees C it was rather cooler than it had been so far this week in mid-Portugal. Temperatures are expected to climb back to the high 20s by Sunday for the race and it is pleasing to note that the sun is forecast to be ever-present.

Up in the wooded hills above Estoril the somewhat faded and jaded Circuito Estoril was re-invigorated by the sight and sounds of top level (almost) sportscar racing in the first of three hour-long free practice sessions: two today, the final one tomorrow morning. It is a decade since they were last here. In 2001 it was Pescarolo’s Courage Peugeot driven by Jean-Christophe Boullion that took the honours in the fourth round of the ELMS.

This year though Boullion races against Pescarolo, his Rebellion Toyota team being just two points ahead of Pescarolo; he and team-mate Bellichi are also just a single point behind Jousse, Tinseau and Collard in the driver’s championship. Tightly set.

Henri Pescarolo was ruing the points lost at Silverstone: “to get the championships we will need to take pole and win the race which will be very difficult with our one car against two very good Rebellion Toyotas. We could not get the right tyres at Silverstone, it was a question of size of rims which meant we couldn’t use the Peugeot and Audi tyres, but Rebellion could, so it didn’t seem very fair for Michelin to let Rebellion have those tyres but not us.

“We must not forget though that a year ago we had no car, no team, no sponsor, so to be here at the final race of the season fighting to win the championship and the Michelin Green X Challenge I think our team can be very proud, even if we don’t win the championship, of what we have achieved. We will be pushing to win though. This is a track that we like and it should suit us much better than at Silverstone especially because the temperatures are to get higher for the race.”

The timing screens revealed the absence of the Kessel Racing Ferrari F458 Italia and indeed there was no sign of the team’s presence in the paddock. So it would appear that we are down to just 27 runners.

Pescarolo and Rebellion seemed well matched throughout the session, often both trading quickest sectors but Pescarolo held the upper hand for most of those and ended up quickest with a 1:31.938, being Collard’s time from halfway through the session. Prost improved late with a 1:32.531, less than two-tenths ahead of his sister car. You only need two competitive cars to make a great race, and we have three at the front here.

In P2 Greaves Motorsport sat out the first quarter of the session but this didn’t prevent Olivier Lombard from ultimately posting the quickest laps in class, his best being a 1:33.103. “The first session is really all about taking braking points and learning the track again, it is two years since I drove here and that was in a 140hp single seater so this is quite different! The track is nice, but a lot more slippery than Silverstone so we are working on grip at the moment. The car is already quite good but there is more to come. There are less cars here than at Silverstone but the difference between the classes is tiny, so that will make it an interesting race. There is certainly the chance for the team to have a very good result, but as we know, anything could happen.”

Lombard’s time was desperately close to P1 pace and, at six-tenths, far enough from the next car (Strakka) to mean the team are considering going very hard for the point in qualifying that would win them the championship, as was confirmed by team manager Jacob Greaves. “We are just doing what we would do for any race weekend at the moment and we certainly don’t have any qualifying set-up or anything like that for the car but if we are in with a shout of pole and the point then we will certainly push for it.”

The other championship contenders (albeit huge outsiders, tied with Strakka), Boutsen Energy, had a frustrated start to the session as Kraihamer recounted. “We had some problems, it is hard to say what they were, but I think it was an electronics upgrade that we had just done. Each time I went to accelerate the engine cut-off. We got it running OK at the end but we are going to change back to the older settings because we need to make sure it works for six hours. The track is very narrow and very bumpy and I think you really need to know all the bumps to get a good lap. I am not sure that this is a perfect track for this kind of racing, there are even lots of different types of tarmac and kerbs but I think it will be really interesting.”

Kraihamer did manage to take his Oreca Nissan to a relatively distant third with a 1:35.651 but that became fourth when the newly installed Jonathan Hirschi took Race Performance’s past them late in the session.

In GTE Pro, Prospeed’s Porsche only put in six laps and sat out the rest of the session, the team reporting no problems, just choosing not to run. A small collection of components around the rear left of the car might have told a different story but it was all smiles in the garage. The champions in the AF Corse #51 were taking it even easier with the car not leaving the box, but it didn’t look like there had been any intention for it to.

Lietz held a half second advantage in GTE Pro for the first half of the session with a 1:41.206, a blanket could have been thrown over the remainder, bar Prospeed who hadn’t got within two seconds off the pace before parking up. With 29 minutes to go Bell jumped away from the pack of squabbling GTE Pros to almost match Lietz’s time, then bettered it on the next lap with a 1:41.037, then a 1:40.851 on his next lap. Could JMW bookend a disappointing mid-season with a victory at either end? GTE Pro ended with #66, #77 and #71 just three tenths apart, then #76, #89, #90 and #79.

Armindo had a cushion of 1.5 seconds over Cioci with his 1:41.527 in GTE Am, Phil Quaife managed to get CRS within a third of a second of AF Corse’s amateur entry.

#92 led #95 in FLM, until Simon reversed that with a 1:39.480. Tor Graves made some late improvements for Neil Garner Motorsport, but not quite enough.

No major incidents to report, next session to commence at 17:30 when the temperatures will be starting to fall.