Murphy Prototypes Tops Opening Practice at Estoril

Photo: ELMS

Murphy Prototypes led the way in an incident-filled opening practice session for Sunday’s European Le Mans Series season-ending Four Hours of Estoril.

The No. 48 Oreca 03R Nissan of Pipo Derani, James Littlejohn and Tony Wells was quickest with a 1:33.381 lap time, edging out the title-contending No. 38 Jota Sport Zytek Z11SN Nissan of Filipe Albuquerque, Harry Tincknell and Simon Dolan by 0.053 seconds.

Thiriet by TDS Racing was third on the time sheets, with the Tristan Gommendy, Pierre Thiriet and Ludovic Badey-driven Ligier JS P2 Nissan recording a 1:33.839 time around the Portuguese circuit.

SMP Racing led both the GTE and GTC classes, with the No. 72 Ferrari F458 Italia of Andrea Bertolini quickest in GTE, while the Mika Salo and Maurizio Mediani-driven No. 57 entry pacing the GT3-based class.

The 90-minute session saw three red flags, the first for the No. 41 Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan of Miguel Faisca, which went into the gravel trap, while both the Kessel Racing Ferrari and ProSpeed Competition Porsche brought out two further reds.

The second and final practice session of the day gets underway at 3:30 p.m. local.

RESULTS: Practice 1

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John