Campbell Leads Calado in Opening Qatar Practice

Matt Campbell led a Porsche-dominated first Free Practice session ahead of the Qatar 1812km, the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship season at Lusail International Circuit.

The Australian driver steered the No. 5 Porsche 963 to a best lap of 1:42.486 during the opening 90-minute session on Thursday afternoon, outpacing the No. 51 Ferrari 499P of James Calado by 0.075 seconds.

The British driver prevented Porsche Penske Motorsport from ending the session with a 1-2 with a series of fast laps, first jumping into third before improving again by posting a 1:42.651 with just over five minutes to go.

In the process, he dropped the Kevin Estre-driven No. 6 Porsche to third, while Alex Lynn posted a late flyer to take the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R into fourth position ahead of Proton Competition’s Harry Tincknell.

Prior to the late improvements by Calado and Lynn, the five 963s entered for this weekend’s ten-hour season opener occupied the first five positions on the timesheets.

Hertz Team JOTA ended the session sixth and seventh with Jenson Button and Callum Ilott, while Kamui Kobayashi made a late improvement to eighth in the best of the Toyota GR010 Hybrids, the No. 7 car.

Completing the top ten were the No. 50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco and Loic Duval’s No. 94 Peugeot 9X8.

In LMGT3, United Autosports driver Nico Pino prevented a Ferrari 1-2, piloting the No. 95 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo to a best lap of 1:55.824.

In the process, he beat Vista AF Corse driver Alessio Rovera and the No. 55 Ferrari 296 GT3 by 0.159 seconds, with Davide Rigon in third place a further 0.086 seconds back.

Daniel Mancinelli slotted into fourth aboard the No. 27 The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, with Erwan Bastard rounding out the top five behind the wheel of the No. 777 D’station Racing machine.

The session was red-flagged a total of three times, with the final stoppage the most notable as it was caused by the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8 finding the gravel with Raffaele Marciello at the wheel with a handful of minutes remaining.

The other two interruptions were for IT problems in race control and a photographer in a dangerous area respectively.

The second Free Practice session is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. local time (9:30 a.m. ET).

Results: Free Practice 1