Aitken Leads Portimao FP1 for Racing Team Turkey

Racing Team Turkey driver Jack Aitken led the opening Free Practice session for this weekend’s European Le Mans Series season finale at Portimao.

After missing the previous ELMS round at Spa due to a date clash with ADAC GT Masters, Aitken is back in the cockpit of the TF Sport-run No. 34 Oreca 07 Gibson for Sunday’s four-hour race in Portugal.

He steered the LMP2 Pro-Am class machine to a time of 1:32.592 in the early stages of Friday morning’s 90-minute session, which took place in sunny conditions.

Aitken ended up just under a quarter of a second clear of second-placed driver Pietro Fittipaldi who was behind the wheel of the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca.

Mathias Beche posted a time of 1:32.876 to go third-quickest for TDS Racing x Vaillante, while Tom Gamble took fourth for Spa race winner United Autosports.

Championship leader Louis Deletraz rounded out the overall top five for Prema.

Despite missing out on the top spot in LMP2, Inter Europol led the way in the LMP3 class courtesy of Guilherme Oliveira who produced a time of 1:37.704.

Cool Racing’s Malthe Jakobsen and United Autosports driver Kay van Berlo were second and third, within the same tenth of a second as the pacesetter.

TF Sport topped a pair of categories in FP1 as the British squad also led GTE with its No. 95 Aston Martin entry.

The time of 1:41.352 set by Jonny Adam beat the best time from Martin Rump in the second-placed Absolute Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19  by 0.086 seconds. Rinaldi Racing’s Ferrari 488 GTE Evos were third and fourth, meanwhile.

A second Free Practice session is due to take place at 11:40 a.m. local time (6:40 a.m. ET) on Saturday morning.

RESULTS: Free Practice 1