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European Le Mans Series

Graff Oreca on Top After Opening Day of ELMS Prologue

Richard Bradley sets the pace on the opening day of ELMS Prologue…

Photo: Vision Sport Agency

Photo: Vision Sport Agency

Richard Bradley posted the fastest lap time from the opening day of the European Le Mans Series Prologue, as the No. 40 Graff Oreca 07 Gibson led the way.

The British driver set a time of 1:36.944 in the afternoon session at the Monza circuit, with the Oreca proving the faster new-generation LMP2 car after eight hours of testing.

Nicolas Lapierre was the second-fastest driver of the day, with a night session time just 0.258 seconds down on Allen’s, in the No. 21 DragonSpeed Oreca.

Enzo Guibbert rounded out the top three of the day as the sister No. 39 Graff entry made it a 1-2 in the afternoon session.

Dennis Anderson was the fastest non-Oreca driver in the High Class Racing Dallara P217 Gibson, while IDEC Sport Racing and Patrice Lafargue were the quickest of the Ligier JS P217 Gibson runners.

Allen led both the second and third sessions of the day, while DragonSpeed’s Ben Hanley set the opening pace in the three-hour morning session.

A strong showing from AT Racing put the AF Corse-run squad at the top of the LMP3 field, with a lap time of 1:45.626 courtesy of Mikkel Jensen towards the end of the day, while the team had also gone fastest in both of the daytime sessions.

Eurointernational was the second-fastest team, while Wayne Boyd put the No. 3 United Autosports entry third quickest on the combined sessions timesheet.

TF Sport dominated proceedings in GTE, and Turkish driver Salih Yoluc set the class’ fastest lap time in all three sessions, driving the No. 90 Aston Martin Vantage GTE.

Fellow British Aston Martin squad Beechdean AMR was the best of the rest with Ross Gunn lapping five-tenths slower than Yoluc. 

Meanwhile, the No. 55 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE and previous-gen JMW Motorsport Ferrari battled it out for third position.

The two main incidents of the day were crashes from the No. 26 United Autosports Ligier JS P3 Nissan and M.Racing – YMR Norma M30 Nissan, both of which will not be able to take part in day two.

Track action gets back underway at 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday.

RESULTS: Session 1
RESULTS: Session 2
RESULTS: Session 3

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.

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