Toyota’s Ryo Hirakawa topped the first practice session for the FIA World Endurance Championship’s season-opening 1000 Miles of Sebring — but Ferrari were not far behind.
While Hirakawa set a 1:47.649 in the dying minutes of the session in the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid, James Calado, behind the wheel of the #51 Ferrari 499P, set a 1:47.935, which was at the head of the timesheets for the most of the session.
In third was Miguel Molina, with the Spaniard setting a 1:48.039 in the sister #50 Ferrari.
The #2 Cadillac V.Series-R was fourth, Richard Westbrook just a few hundredths of a second off Molina.
The sister #7 Toyota was fifth with Jose Maria Lopez setting the car’s best time. The two Porsches and two Peugeots were sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth, with #6 Porsche 963 ahead of its tramcar #5, while the #94 Peugeot led the #93.
The two non-hybrid Hypercars from Glickenhaus and Vanwall were 16th and 20th overall.
In LMP2, Mirko Bortolotti led the way in the #63 Prema Oreca 07-Gibson, with a 1:50.074. Robin Frijns was next up in the #31 WRT Oreca 07-Gibson, but was almost three tenths off Bortolotti’s pace-setting lap time. In third was the other Prema, #9, with Andrea Caldarelli 0.021 off Frijns.
Finally, in GTE-Am, Michelle Getting set the pace, with the #85 Iron Dames driver lapping Sebring in 1:59.028 in the #85 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo. Second was another Ferrari, this time the #54 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of Francesco Castellacci, a few hundredths off Getting. Corvette driver Nicky Catsburg was a further half a tenth off in the #33 Corvette C8.R.
Free practice 2 gets underway at 16:35 local time.
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