Reigning Champions Fastest in First Session at Imola

The Oreca-Nissan of Beche and Pierre Thiriet was 0.9 seconds quicker than the second placed car, the Silverstone race winning nr38 Jota Sport Zytek-Nissan of Oliver Turvey and Simon Dolan and the nr18 Murphy Prototypes Oreca Nissan of Brendon Hartley and Mark Patterson. 

The opening Free Practice session of the weekend started on a wet track but a dry line soon appeared.  However there was an interruption when the nr30 HVM Status GP Lola Judd spun off at T5 and had to be recovered to a safe place bringing out the red flag so the marshals could work in safety. 

The fastest LMPC competitor was the nr47 Team Endurance Challenge FLM Oreca 09 of Alex Loan and Matthieu Lecuyer in 10th place overall with a time of 1m52.243. 

The GT categories was an all Ferrari affair with the nr66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari 458 Italia of Andrea Bertolini and Joel Camathias leading the LMGTE class with a time of 1m48.583 and finishing the 60-minute session in 8th overall.  The fastest GTC competitor was the nr69 SMP Racing Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 of Fabio Babini, Viktor Shaitar and Kirill Ladygin in 15th overall in a time of 1m53.079. 

The second 60-minute Free Practice session will take place at 16:40 this afternoon.