Buemi Quickest in Spa Opening Practice

Sebastien Buemi set the quickest time in the opening Free Practice session for the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, outpacing Ferrari driver Antonio Fuoco by over a second and a half.

Buemi steered the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid to a best lap of 2:02.982, going 1.650 seconds faster than the No. 50 Ferrari 499P piloted by Fuoco.

The Italian, in turn, remained ahead of the second Toyota of Jose Maria Lopez by just 0.010 seconds.

The No. 51 Ferrari clocked the fourth fastest time with Alessandro Pier Guidi at the wheel, ahead of Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Laurens Vanthoor.

The Belgian completed the top five as Alex Lynn came sixth in the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R.

Gustavo Menezes was seventh for Peugeot, leading Porsche Penske Motorsport driver Michael Christensen and the No. 3 Cadillac of Sebastien Bourdais.

Filipe Albuquerque, quickest in LMP2, completed the overall top ten. The Portuguese driver reeled off a lap of 2:07.471 aboard the No. 22 United Autosports Oreca 07 Gibson.

He cleared JOTA’s Pietro Fittipaldi by 0.043 seconds, with the second United car third driven by Tom Blomqvist third.

The three top LMP2 runners remained ahead of Peugeot’s Paul di Resta. Three other Hypercar runners were slower than LMP2 squads.

Glickenhaus came 16th overall, with Vanwall driver Tom Dillmann in 21st ahead of the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche 963.

The gold-liveried car completed 18 laps during its first official track session, with Will Stevens posting its quickest lap at 2:09.048.

Daniel Serra set the fastest time in GTE-Am, posting a 2:16.777 aboard the No. 57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.

Ulysse de Pauw was second for AF Corse, with Charlie Eastwood rounding out the top three aboard the No. 25 ORT by TF Aston Martin Vantage AMR.

The 90-minute session was red-flagged twice, with the second interruption bringing the session to a premature end.

A spin into the barriers for the No. 83 Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari of Luis Perez Companc triggered the first stoppage.

The session was then red-flagged a second time for an incident involving the No. 777 D’Station Racing Aston Martin of Satoshi Hoshino and the No. 4 Vanwall Vandervell 680 Gibson, which had Esteban Guerrieri at the wheel at the time.

Track action at Spa-Francorchamps continues with Free Practice 2, scheduled to start at 4:20 p.m. local time (10:20 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Free Practice 1