WEC: Ferrari pipped by Cadillac to the top in FP3 at Spa
- Marios Gantzoudis
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
Cadillac went fastest of all in the final free practice session for the second round of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) at Spa, albeit only 0.023 seconds faster than Ferrari in second, with four cars in total within a tenth of each other.
The No.12 Hertz Team Jota Cadillac in the hands of Will Stevens proved to be the fastest in the hour-long final free practice session, before the all important qualifying and Hyperpole sessions decide the grid for the Spa 6 Hours.
Stevens' 2:02.379 was the sessions' benchmark, with the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari only just missing out, as Robert Kubica's early session best of 2:02.402 was subsequently beaten. Third fastest came the No.007 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie in the hands of Harry Tincknell, only 0.090 off the Cadillac, with the team continuing to show promise.
Fourth fastest was the the No.38 Cadillac, with the sister car achieving a 2:02.483, while the Top five in the Hypercar class was rounded out by the No.51 Ferrari, with a time of 2:02.631, with most teams seemingly as closely matched as ever. Meanwhile the FP2 topping Alpines set only the eighth fastest and 10th fastest times respectively, with the No.35 car faster.
The session was not as clean as the teams would like, as it was heavily affected late on by three full course yellows, twice for debris in Turns 2 and 10, while the final 10 minutes were mostly processional, due to the beached No.92 Manthey Porsche in Turn 8.
It was a troubling session for some LMGT3's as five minute stop-go penalties were handed out to the No.23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin and the No.88 Proton Competition Ford, relating to FP2 incidents, as well as the No.34 Racing Team Turkey By TF Corvette later on, due to track limit violations.
The timing sheets for the LMGT3 class were dominated by a McLaren 1-2, as both the Garage 59 cars were a whopping six tenths of a second faster than the third place Vista AF Corse Ferrari, with the No.58 car in the hands of Finn Gehrsitz setting the session best time of 2:17.068, only 0.004 faster than the sister No.10 car.
The Qualifying session is scheduled to get underway for the LMGT3s at 14:30 (13:30 BST) and for Hypercars at 15:20 (14:20 BST).
