On 2 May, there were two practice sessions at the Belgian Spa-Francorchamps circuit before the seventh round of the World Endurance Championship.
SMP Racing crews showed the best results during the first practice session.
BR1 No. 17 (Egor Orudzhev, Sergey Sirotkin, Stefan Sarrazin) went fastest overall with a 1:42.2s. The car number 11 (Mikhail Aleshin, Vitaly Petrov, Stoffel Vandoorne) became second with the time of 1: 58.236.
In the second practice, the weather changed - it started to rain, and in such conditions, the crew of Aleshin / Petrov / Vandoorne became third, giving way to two Toyota for about a second with the lap time of 2: 21.429. Another SMP Racing crew was unable to show the result as it raced off the track due to heavy rain.
"It was a good day for us. For me it was the first time in the car, so I’m quite happy with the laps I’ve got today", Stoffel Vandoorne commented. "First practice session was dry so was nice to have a first feeling of the car. It was important to get those laps and I felt really comfortable in the car straight away. We had a really good pace to start with so that was very positive. In the afternoon it started to rain, but, fortunately, we were able to adapt to different conditions, making sure we don’t damage the car But it was important to finish our session and I’m happy I got some good laps in the end, when the weather got better. So, it was a really good day for the team.”
“The first practice was quite productive: we compared two types of tyres, drove with empty and full tanks,” Sergey Sirotkin (car No. 17) commented. “We don’t have much to say about the second practice session, but, fortunately, that time, which we did not use in it, worked well in the first practice. I think our pace was quite competitive. I got a good lap on a softer composition of tyres, so I think we can be happy with the results of this practice. I hope that tomorrow we will compensate for what we did not achieve during the evening session.”
On Friday, May 3, the third practice and qualifying sessions will take place before the 6 hours of Spa-Francorchamps.
