Porsche fastest in Le Mans FP1 10 | 06 | 2015
AUSSIE MARK WEBBER (pictured in his car's red livery) topped the timesheets at the end of a weather-affected opening free practice ahead of this weekend's Le Mans 24-Hours, beating last year's pole position time in the process.
A total of 56 cars will line up for the 83rd running of the world's most famous and gruelling 24-hours endurance race when it starts at 2pm (UK) on Saturday.
The former Red Bull F1 grand prix winner, driving the No 17 Porsche, clocked a fastest time of 3mins 39.128secs to edge out the No8 Audi of Cambridge's Oliver Jarvis.
Porsche 919 Hybrids filled the next two slots, followed by the remaining two diesel-hybrid Audi R18 e-tron quattros, with the two Toyotas in seventh and eighth places.
With 22 minutes of the four-hour session remaining, Frenchman Romain Dumas also broke last year's pole time set by Toyota's Kazuki Nakajima, but the Porsche driver achieved it after cutting the first part of the final chicane to avoid a GTE Ferrari. Stewards removed is time from the records.
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Nissan's return to the premier LMP1 class, with its rather quirky GT-R LM Nismo, resulted in its three cars filling 12th through to 14th, though they were around 19s off the pace set by the lead Porsches and Audis.
Intermittent rain throughout the session interrupted the teams' development programmes ahead of this evening's first two-hour qualifying session.
In LMP2, KCMG's ORECA-Nissan topped the timesheets despite grinding to a halt on its outlap due to a water-pressure problem. Britain's Richard Bradley powered the car to a best time of 3m39.897s — to top the LMP2 standings, and 11th overall —embarrassingly for Nissan, 0.4s faster than the factory LMP1 cars.
Scotland's Florida-based Ryan Dalziel, partnered by American Scott Sharp. was sixth-fastest in LMP2 in his Extreme Motorsports HPD ARX, clocking 4:12.333.
In the GTE classes, it was clean sweep for Aston Martin. I GTE Pro, Richie Stanaway was fastest with a 3m55.895s, to edge out the No 64 64 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R. Meanwhile in GTE Am, Pedro Lamy was fastest in the No 98 Aston, almost three seconds clear of the Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR.
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Jim McGill