Beche Quickest in Opening Portimao Practice

Mathias Beche led the way in the opening Free Practice session for the 4 Hours of Portimao, the final round of the European Le Mans Series season.

Beche’s best lap of 1:31.648, set aboard the No. 29 TDS Racing Oreca 07 Gibson, was 0.077 seconds quicker than the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition machine driven by Nick Yelloly. Beche also led the LMP2 Pro-Am class.

Job van Uitert was third in the No. 28 IDEC Sport Oreca, followed by Vector Sport’s Pietro Fittipaldi while Ferdinand Habsburg rounded out the overall top five aboard the No. 24 Nielsen Racing entry.

Esteban Masson slotted into sixth aboard the No. 48 VDS Panis Racing Oreca, ahead of the No. 27 Nielsen Racing car of James Allen and newly crowned IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship LMP2 champion Dane Cameron behind the wheel of the No. 99 AO by TF car.

Matteo Cairoli and Pedro Perino completed the top ten for Iron Lynx-Proton and Inter Europol, respectively.

The LMP3 class had all three of the category’s manufacturers represented in the top five, lead by the No. 17 CLX Motorsport Ligier JS P325 Toyota in the hands of Adrien Closmenil.

Closmenil reeled off a 1:38.935, which was 0.316 seconds faster than Griffin Peebles aboard the No. 12 WTM by Rinaldi Racing Duqueine D09 Toyota.

Gillian Henrion picked up third in RLR M Sport’s No. 15 Ligier, with the No. 4 DKR Engineering Ginetta G61-LT-P325-EVO Toyota fourth with Mikkel G. Pedersen at the wheel.

The No. 63 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo set the pace in LMGT3, courtesy of a best time of 1:42.973 set by Fabian Schiller.

The Mercedes-AMG factory driver outpaced the No. 85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 GT3 R of Michelle Gatting by 0.166 seconds.

Garnet Patterson picked up third in the No. 23 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, followed by Kessel Racing’s pair of Ferrari 296 GT3s driven by Daniel Serra and Miguel Molina.

The second Free Practice session at Portimao is scheduled for Friday at 10:10 a.m. local time (5:10 a.m. EST).

RESULTS: Free Practice 1