Both the ambient temperature and humidity have risen today but the bright sunshine at the start of Free Practice 2 was a welcome change from yesterday’s overcast skies and intermittent rain. Good weather is forecast for the remainder of the weekend here in Shanghai. As the mercury rose, so the times dropped on the track in all classes, with Toyota taking the initiative from Audi at the head of the time sheets.
It was Toyota Racing’s Alex Wurz – one of 11 drivers present who have driven on the Shanghai International Circuit either in a Grand Prix or in an A1 Grand Prix event – who set a blistering pace this afternoon. The Austrian’s time of 1:50.573 in the No.7 Toyota TS030 Hybrid was 1.2 seconds ahead of the No.2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Allan McNish, an improvement by a similar margin on this morning’s best overall lap of the 5.45km track. Benoît Tréluyer was third fastest in the LMP1 category with a time of 1:52.093, set in the No.1 Audi.
Neel Jani in the No.12 Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota also made a significant improvement over this morning, and his time of 1:52.576 was within spitting distance of the factory-entered teams. The HPD ARX-03 twins of JRM and Strakka Racing were both one second and 1.2 seconds behind Rebellion respectively. Just 3.5 seconds separated the eight cars in the LMP1 category.
Despite the car suffering from an early session spin and excursion off track, while in the hands of Kevin Weeda, James Rossiter recovered in a spectacular way and put the No.32 Lotus Lola-Coupé ahead of the LMP2 field. The British driver’s best lap of 1:55.290 was 1.1 seconds faster than the second placed No.25 ADR-Delta Oreca-Nissan, Australian John Martin having set the mark for the British team. Third in LMP2 was the No.24 OAK Racing Morgan-Nissan entry of Jacques Nicolet-Matthieu Lahaye –Olivier Pla steering that car this weekend, as they have done all year.
In LM GTE Pro, Darren Turner’s No.97 Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTE was the car to beat this afternoon, with a best lap of 2:05.678. His time was just one tenth of a second ahead of the No.51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia of Giancarlo Fisichella and three tenths in front of Richard Lietz’s No.77 Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche. The battle between these three marques continues to be as unpredictable and exciting as ever.
Marco Cioci put his considerable Ferrari 458 experience to good use in the No.61 AF Corse-Waltrip entry, setting the fastest time in the LM GTE Am class. His lap of 2:06.471 was almost a second quicker than Pedro Lamy’s best lap in the No.50 Larbre Compétition Corvette C6.R with the No.88 Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche snapping at the heels of the American muscle car.
With jet lag hitting many up and down the pit lane, an early night is in order so drivers and teams will be ready for Free Practice 3 tomorrow at 0915 hours (local time).
Alex Wurz, No.7 Toyota TS030 Hybrid: “The first session this morning was slightly tricky. We had to adjust quite a bit on the car but actually that worked out very nicely for the long run. I found a very good rhythm and I was also quite lucky with traffic to be honest. On paper this track should be quite good in terms of traffic but in reality off line is so dusty that it is pretty bad, so it will be interesting in the race. The track surface itself evolved quite a bit from the first laps this morning, but that was as expected. It’s still early in the weekend; I am quite pleased but there are some places where we can optimise the car so there is still work to do.”
Nicolas Lapierre, No.7 Toyota TS030 Hybrid: “Shanghai is a nice track to drive. The surface was very dirty at the beginning of the morning session; I guess it has been a while since it has been used but it was getting better lap after lap. The balance was not great at the start because the track is quite bumpy and we didn’t expect it to be so much of an issue. So we adjusted the set up of the car to take that into account and it was much better. In the afternoon Alex did most of the driving, checking some other set-up changes and seeing how the tyres evolve on a track which is quite aggressive. There is still room for improvement but we have made good progress.”
Fiona Miller
For full results click here
Photo: SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT (SHANGHAI, CHINA), 6 HOURS OF SHANGHAI, FRIDAY, 26TH OCTOBER, FREE PRACTICE 2. Toyota led the way in Free Practice 2.
