Ferrari sent out a strong signal as the third round of the FIA World Endurance Championship got underway. Italian driver Antonio Fuoco (#50) set the fastest time in the first Spa free practice session, at 2:02.835, but it proved to be a bruising day for the Italian squad.
Both red cars veered off the track in FP2 and made contact with the barriers, requiring repair work ahead of Friday’s third practice and qualifying sessions.
Second-fastest in FP1 was Robert Kubica in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari, who lapped the Belgian circuit just 0.222 seconds slower than Fuoco.
Mick Schumacher in the #36 Alpine rounded out the FP1 top-three with a 2:03.094, with the two Peugeots (#93 and #94) in fourth and fifth.
The session was interrupted by two full-course yellow periods. The first was caused by a spin from Paul-Loup Chatin in the #35 Alpine, who had to be freed from the gravel trap at Les Combes. The second was the result of a similar incident for Sébastien Bourdais at Campus in the #38 Cadillac.
Porsche set best time of the day in FP2
Kévin Estre finished the day as the quickest driver in the field, topping the time sheets in FP2 in his #6 Porsche 963. As the circuit began to offer more and more grip, the Frenchman posted a 2:01.475 to go over 1 second quicker than Fuoco’s FP1 benchmark. The #50 continued its good form to go second-fastest, ahead of the #20 Team WRT BMW of Robin Frijns and René Rast.
The second Spa free practice session proved to be a stop-start affair, as three red flags were called to recover cars after incidents. Besides the aforementioned Ferrari travails, the #60 Mercedes-AMG of Stephen Grove and the #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie of Tom Gamble also suffered accident damage.
LMGT3
The top four in the LMGT3 field was separated by just half a second in FP1. Lexus continued their rich vein of form with the session-best time of 2:18.432. The #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari was second fastest with the #87 Lexus in third.
In FP2, it was the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin who finished top of the pile, ahead of the #87 Lexus and the #54 Ferrari.
The action continues on Friday with FP3 (live on YouTube) and qualifying. For a full schedule for the weekend, check out our calendar page. All the times from FP1 and FP2 can be found here.
Images © Endurance Archive