Jamin Leads Deletraz, Gamble in Paul Ricard FP1

Nico Jamin set the fastest time in the opening practice session for the 4 Hours of Le Castellet.

The Panis Racing driver reeled off a lap of 1:43:397 aboard the No. 65 Oreca 07 Gibson ahead of Sunday’s opening round of the European Le Mans Series.

The Frenchman shares the car with Job van Uitert and Julien Canal.

Jamin took to the top of the timing sheets in the early stages of the 90-minute session, surpassing Prema’s Louis Deletraz who had set a time of 1:43:503 shortly before.

The No. 9 Prema Oreca, which features Lorenzo Colombo as a late stand-in following Juan Manuel Correa’s foot injury, remained second.

Tom Gamble ended the session third for United Autosports, followed by the No. 34 TF Sport-operated Racing Team Turkey Oreca, which also led the Pro-Am field thanks to Jack Aitken.

Inter Europol Competition rounded out the top five, ahead of Cool Racing, TDS Racing, IDEC Sport, Algarve Pro Racing’s No. 45 car and AF Corse, which rounded out the top ten.

LMP3 went the way of United Autosports as Dutchman Kay van Berlo posted an early best lap of 1:49:286 to jump to the top spot in class and stayed there for the remainder of the session.

The No. 3 Ligier JS P320 Nissan outpaced Alex Kapadia’s no. 5 RLR Msport Ligier by 0.269 seconds as Cool Racing rounded out the top three.

Van Berlo’s brother Glenn took fourth place in the no. 10 Eurointernational entry, followed by the second United Autosports Ligier completing the top five.

The GTE field was led by Mikkel Jensen, as the Peugeot factory driver surpassed Proton Competition’s Gianmaria Bruni to lead the class.

Jensen set a time of 1:53:845 behind the wheel of the Car Guy-liveried No. 57 Car Guy Racing Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.

Bruni, driving the No. 77 Porsche 911 RSR-19 in second place ahead of the sister car, which had IMSA stalwart Zach Robichon turning laps behind the wheel.

The session remained largely green throughout, with one brief red flag period after an hour of running.

The second free practice session for the 4 Hours of Le Castellet takes place on Saturday at 9:00 a.m. local time.

RESULTS: Practice 1