The first session for the FIA World Endurance Championship Prologue at Sebring International Raceway has been disrupted by bad weather.
Heavy rain and winds battered the iconic Florida venue on Saturday morning, causing the three-hour session to be red flagged with about an hour left on the clock. The session did not resume.
Reigning champion Jose Maria Lopez ended up fastest in the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid, posting a 1m 51.223s to top the times. The Argentinean was the only Hypercar driver to go quicker than the LMP2 runners and only doing after an hour of running had already been completed.
Ferdinand Habsburg went second quickest overall and fastest in LMP2 driving the #41 Realteam by WRT ORECA 07-Gibson, 0.417s behind Lopez and just ahead of the #36 Alpine A480-Gibson. The #8 Toyota was eleventh overall, over a second behind the sister car.
Habsburg led a one-two in LMP2 for Team WRT, with Robin Frijns second in the #31 sister car leading newcomers Prema, JOTA’s #38 car and the two United Autosports entries.
GTE Pro was topped by the #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Michael Christensen, posting a 01:58:543. The Dane, who has returned to the full-season line-up alongside Kevin Estre, also caused the first red flag of the session with a stoppage.
Porsche led the session in a one-two as Christensen’s team-mate Richard Lietz was second in the #91 sister car ahead of the #64 Corvette C8.R in third place. Reigning champion Alessandro Pier Guidi was fourth for AF Corse, but slower than the fastest car in GTE Am.
That class was lead by the #46 Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Matteo Cairoli, the Italian reeling off a 1m 59.573 to lead the #98 NorthWest AMR Aston Martin Vantage AMR of Nicki Thiim. Ben Barnicoat was third in the second Team Project 1 Porsche, which is running in Inception Racing colours.
