WEC Prologue: Cadillac eclipses Toyota in second Sebring session

Earl Bamber led the way in the three-hour period on Saturday afternoon aboard the solo Ganassi-run Cadillac Racing LMDh with a 1m48.429s.

The time for the Caddy V-Series.R set early in the session was enough to eclipse the best of the Toyota Le Mans Hypercars by just over a hundredth, Sebastien Buemi taking second spot on a 1m48.443s.

But Bamber’s time was still two tenths shy of the laps in the 1m48.2s bracket both Toyota GR010 HYBRIDs managed in the morning session.

Jose Maria Lopez took third position in the afternoon with a 1m48.553s, which was three tenths off the time with which he topped the classification in the morning.

Ferrari took fourth and fifth positions with its pair of AF Corse-run 499P LMHs, though the two cars were a second off the pace.

Antonio Fuoco set a 1m49.402s to just edge out Antonio Giovinazzi, who ended up on 1m49.573s.

The two Porsche 963 LMDhs were sixth and seventh, Frederic Makowiecki’s 1m49.657s putting him three tenths up on Laurens Vanthoor in the second of the two Penske-run cars.

#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Kévin Estre, André Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Peugeot was again off the pace in the Hypercar class in eighth and ninth positions, Nico Muller’s 1m51.035s in the fastest of the 9X8 LMHs leaving him 2.6s behind the Cadillac.

Mikkel Jensen took ninth with 1m51.767s after the car lost track time following an incident between Jean-Eric Vergne and the Vector Sport LMP2 ORECA driven by Ryan Cullen.

Glickenhaus and Vanwall again brought up the rear of 11-car Hypercar field, Olivier Pla’s 1m52.203s for Glickenhaus outpacing Esteban Guerrieri by seven tenths.

Phil Hanson was again quickest in LMP2 for the United Autosports squad, the Briton knocking more than two tenths off his morning best aboard the #22 ORECA-Gibson 07 to get down to a 1m51.492s.

The next two cars in class were four and five hundredths behind: Daniil Kvyat was second for Prema with a 1m51.534s just ahead of WRT driver Louis Deletraz on 1m51.589s.

Michelle Gatting also followed up on her GTE Am time-topping performance in the morning by going quickest again aboard the Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR.

The Dane posted a 1m59.201s aboard the Iron Lynx-run car to end up over two tenths clear of Ulysse de Pauw in the fastest of the AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evos.

The WEC Prologue resumes for the first of two more sessions at 09:00 local time on Sunday.