Cadillac Earl Bamber topped the session times in the rookie test following the FIA World Endurance Championship season finale, but Arthur Leclerc was the fastest rookie in the #50 Ferrari 499P.
Leclerc set a 1:50.460 to go quickest, with his time coming in the afternoon session. Ahead of him were four full-time Hypercar drivers: Bamber, BMW’s Dries Vanthoor, Nicklas Nielsen in the same Ferrari as Leclerc, and Jules Gounon in the Alpine A424.
Although Nielsen’s time was set in the morning session, Leclerc was less than a tenth off the Le Mans winner’s lap time.
The next fastest Hypercar rookie was Valentino Rossi, in the BMW M Hybrid V8, just over a tenth off Leclerc’s lap time and 1.011 off Leclerc.
Victor Martins in the Alpine was after Rossi, with BMW’s Max Hesse, Thomas Neubauer in the #51 Ferrari, and Dan Harper also in the BMW the fastest lap order.
In GT3, the times were topped by Ben Barnicoat in the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3. The fastest non-WEC / non-full time GT3 driver was Mahaveer Raghunathan in the #55 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, followed by Aurelien Panis, also in the Lexus like Barnicoat.
See the full session results from both sessions here.
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