Hanson Quickest in Spa FP1

Phil Hanson led the opening Free Practice session for the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, while his United Autosports stablemate Bailey Voisin caused a red flag.

Hanson set the pace early by reeling off a best lap of 2:04.977 in the No. 22 United Autosports Oreca 07 Gibson to top proceedings, outpacing IDEC Sport’s Patrick Pilet by 0.239 seconds.

Fabio Scherer slotted into third for Inter Europol Competition, ahead of the No. 37 Cool Racing Oreca of Yifei Ye.

Duqueine Team’s Richard Bradley rounded out the top five in the No. 30 Oreca ahead of Algarve Pro Racing and Nielsen Racing.

Malthe Jakobsen topped the LMP3 class by posting a 2:11.786 in the No. 17 Cool Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan, beating out Nico Pino’s No. 13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier and RLR Sports Valentino Catalano in third place.

Bailey Voisin, driving the No. 2 United Autosports Ligier, caused the lone red flag of the session when he spun into the gravel at Malmedy.

Voisin ended the session outside of the top five in class, which was completed by DKR Engineering’s Sebastian Alvarez and Eurointernational’s Xavier Lloveras.

Alessio Picariello led GTE with a best lap of 2:16.949 in the No. 18 Absolute Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19.

The Belgian racer outpaced Porsche factory ace Richard Lietz in the No. 93 Proton Competition Porsche, with a returning Matthew Payne third in the No. 66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.

Doriane Pin was fourth for the Iron Dames squad, with Mikkel Jensen’s No. 57 Kessel Racing Ferrari completing the class ahead of the No. 69 Oman Racing with TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage AMR driven by Marco Sorensen.

Second practice at Spa takes place on Saturday at 10:25 a.m. CEST (4:25 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Free Practice 1