Vaxiviere Leads Second Practice at Sepang

AF Corse driver Matthieu Vaxiviere topped the second practice session ahead of this weekend’s opening Asian Le Mans Series double-header at Sepang.

Vaxiviere posted the quickest lap of Friday afternoon’s second 90-minute session, a 1:52.924, aboard the No. 83 Oreca 07 Gibson, to top the times by 0.125 seconds.

That was around seven tenths slower than the benchmark laid down by Algarve Pro Racing’s Olli Caldwell in the opening practice session earlier in the day.

DKR Engineering’s No. 3 Oreca was second-fastest with Laurents Hoerr setting the car’s best time of 1:53.049, ahead of Nicky Catsburg in Nielsen Racing’s No. 24 car and Tristan Vautier aboard the No. 30 car of RD Limited.

The FP1-leading No. 20 APR car was only fifth-fastest this time around with Alex Quinn at the wheel, with Malthe Jakobsen seventh in the Portuguese team’s No. 25 entry behind the best of the Proton Competition cars, the No. 22 of Vlad Lomko.

In LMP3, Inter Europol Competition led the way with a best time of 2:03.051 set by Douwe Dedecker in the No. 34 Ligier JS P320 Nissan.

That was just 0.055 seconds faster than the second-placed No. 15 RLR MSport Ligier in which Ian Aguilera set the fastest time.

The No. 81 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo was fastest in the GT class thanks to a 2:05.285 set by Rinat Salikhov.

Next up were two Ferrari 296 GT3s, the No. 74 Kessel Racing car of Ben Tuck and the No. 28 AF Corse example driven by Massimiliano Wiser.

Two more Mercedes-AMG squads, the No. 2 Climax Racing car and the No. 9 GetSpeed car, rounded out the top five in class.

Qualifying for the 4 Hours of Sepang takes place on Saturday morning at 9:50 a.m. local time (8:50 p.m. EDT) ahead of the opening race at 2 p.m. local time (1 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Free Practice 2