Day one of the 2022 European Le Mans Series official test at the Circuit Paul Ricard saw ten hours of track time in three sessions.
The weather was dry with a breeze and cloud cover in the morning and an average temperature of around 12 degrees Celsius. The afternoon session saw the cloud break and the temperature slightly better at 14 degrees. The two-hour evening session concluded after sunset with the ambient temperature dipping to 10 degrees by the time the chequered flag was waved.
Reigning Champion Yifei Ye set the pace in the no37 Cool Racing Oreca 07-Gibson, with the Chinese driver posting the fastest time in the morning session and then improving by 0.5 seconds in the afternoon with a 1m43.856 lap, the fastest of the three sessions.
The second fastest car on Day One was the no43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca, with Fabio Scherer setting a 1m44.161 lap in the 2-hour evening session, 0.220s ahead of the no28 IDEC Sport Oreca of Paul Loup Chatin, who was third fastest overall with a 1m44.381 lap in the 4-hour morning session.
The fastest of the 13 LMP3 entries was the no17 Cool Racing Ligier JS P320-Nissan of Malthe Jakobsen, the Dane setting a 1m50.106 lap in the morning, 0.6 seconds ahead of the no5 RLR MSport Ligier driven by Alex Kapadia, with a 1m50.720.Kapadia set the fastest time in the afternoon session but was 0.041s slower than his best time of the day.
The third fastest LMP3 car on Day One was the no27 Cool Racing Ligier of Jean-Ludovic Foubert, the French driver just one tenth behind Alex Kapadia, setting a 1m50.874 in the afternoon.
The LMGTE class was headed by reigning champions Iron Lynx, with Davide Rigon lapping the 5.771km track in the no60 Ferrari F488 GTE EVO in 1m54.201 in the morning, just 0.026s ahead of Gianmaria Bruni in the no77 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19.
The Italian posted a 1m54.227 lap to go fastest in the afternoon, 0.147s ahead of the no33 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari of Oscar Tunjo, the Columbian going second quickest in the afternoon with a 1m54.374 and third fastest on Day One.
Day 2 of the 2022 ELMS Official Test will see seven hours of track time beginning with a 4-hour morning session, which starts at 09h00, with a further 3-hour afternoon session at 14h00.
CLICK HERE to see the result from the morning session
CLICK HERE to see the result from the afternoon session
CLICK HERE to see the result from the evening session
