Ferrari AF Corse’s pair of 499Ps topped the times in the second practice session of the FIA World Endurance Championship meeting at Spa this afternoon, the No. 51 finishing up 1.2 seconds quicker than the No. 50 sister car after a 2m01.871s from Antonio Giovinazzi. The Italian’s tour of the circuit was the fastest time of the weekend so far, and almost a second quicker than last year’s pole time.
Third in the times during what turned out to be an incident-filled session, disrupted by two red flags and three full-course yellows, was the No. 2 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, which set a best time of 2m03.338s. The quickest of the Toyotas was the FP1-topping No. 8, which slotted in fourth with a 2m04.380s.
It was a messy 90 minutes for more than one of the Hypercar teams. Porsche Penske Motorsport’s pair of 963s managed a combined seven laps after issues early in the running. The No. 5 stopped on the Kemmel Straight at the hands of Dane Cameron with a driveshaft issue, while the No. 6 had a hybrid system failure at La Source which required a reset. Neither car would go on to set more laps after their respective issues.
Porsche has told RACER that the No. 5’s issue, which was a broken connection to the wheel at the driveshaft’s mounting point, has been repaired. The team is currently working on the No. 6 and investigating the root cause of its issue.
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Cadillac Racing’s brand-new No. 3 V-Series.R, which was finished being built up just before Free Practice 1, also lost most of the session to an issue. Renger van der Zande was forced to stop the car due to a small fire after just two laps.
A statement from the team after the session revealed that the fire (put out by Renger) was caused by a “self-induced” mistake which the team was not comfortable explaining in further detail. “We are going to have some extra work to do tonight,” the team added.
The most significant incident came with 14 minutes remaining in the session, when the No. 21 and No. 54 GTE Am class Ferrari 488s had a huge off at Raidillon. The cars, driven by Diego Alessi and Thomas Flohr respectively, were damaged severely after contact with the barriers on driver’s right after Flohr reported he was rear-ended by the No. 21.
Both drivers exited their cars without outside assistance, although there was no information immediately available on their condition. The No. 21 sustained heavy right-side and rear-end damage, while the No. 54 sustained front-end damage.
In LMP2, Team WRT’s No. 31 ORECA set the pace with a 2m06.108s from Robin Frijns, who was quicker than the six of the 13 Hypercar class cars. United Autosport’s No. 22 and the No. 41 sister WRT ORECA completed the top three with times four and five-tenths off the Dutchman.
The No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari, which was damaged in the Raidillon incident, led GTE Am with a 2m15.736s from Davide Rigon. The No. 57 Kessel Ferrari and GR Racing Porsche finished the day second and third.
UP NEXT: Free Practice 3 is set to get underway at 11:00am local time Friday.