In the first free practice session this morning at Sebring, the technicians and engineers focused, as usual, on preparing the car for the race. While there is a danger of rain on Friday, especially in the final stages, today the weather was excellent, with sunshine, high temperatures and a strong wind that was felt especially along the circuit’s long straights.
Set-up and uneven surface. A great deal of work went into the car set-up, to limit the effects of this track’s characteristic unevenness. The ninth and eleventh places in the LM GTE Pro class of car no. 51 of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Daniel Serra and no. 71 with Sam Bird, Davide Rigon and Miguel Molina's, are no cause for concern. The two 488 GTE Evos were among the cars that completed the most laps, 67 in the one hour and thirty-minute session. The Aston Martin of Alexander Lynn and Maxime Martin clocked the fastest time.
Competitive in AM. In the LM GTE Am class too, the teams devoted a lot of time and attention to fine-tuning the car, although in this case, the Ferraris ended up in the leading positions. The 488 GTE no. 61 of Clearwater Racing with Luis Perez Companc, Matteo Cressoni and Matthew Griffin closed the session in fourth place, while the no. 54 of Spirit of Race, driven by Giancarlo Fisichella, Francesco Castellacci and Thomas Flohr finished sixth. Then came the last of the Ferraris on track, the no. 70 of MR Racing, with Motoaki Ishikawa, Olivier Beretta and Edward Cheever III. The Aston Martin of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda was fastest at the end of the session.