2018 Track Action Arrives at Sunny Circuit Paul Ricard
The long winter break was officially declared over as a bumper WEC field at the official Prologue test at Circuit Paul Ricard roared in to life this morning.
Under glorious blue skies and warm conditions a new era of endurance competition got underway as the Super Season welcomed its first combined test session of the season.
Toyota Gazoo Racing led the way during the morning running as the updated No.8 car, driven by Sebastien Buemi and Mike Conway, led the way ahead of the sister car.
The No.7 car will run throughout the 30 hours available today and tomorrow and will have all of the Japanese manufacturers’ drivers in its cockpit. As well as Buemi and Conway, Alex Wurz returns to action and Jose-Maria Lopez and Anthony Davidson will also get seat time.
The non-hybrid LMP1 challengers were making good progress as lunchtime approached with the CEFC TRSM Racing squad third as Oliver Rowland got more valuable miles logged in the Ginetta G60-LT-P1 Mechachrome.
SMP Racing and Rebellion Racing were gathering miles on their new LMP1 cars, while DragonSpeed conducted a handful of exploratory laps with its BR1-Gibson.
The American-entered team witnessed its LMP2 car topping the times as Roberto Gonzalez, Ben Hanley and Pastor Maldonado posted laps in the Mexican liveried ORECA-Gibson.
LMGTE Pro saw a typically close leader board as Ford placed 1-2 with the No.66 Olivier Pla and Stefan Mucke piloted Ford Chip Ganassi run car just 0.1s quicker than the sister No.67 car.
Ben Barker claimed the first morning time for Gulf Racing as they continued to build for a third consecutive season in the LMGTE Am class. This season Alex Davidson joins Mike Wainwright and Ben Barker in the evocatively liveried Porsche 911 RSR.
