Fontana Heads Porsche 1-2-3 in Practice

Alex Fontana headed a Porsche 1-2-3 as official track running for this weekend’s Michelin 24H Dubai began with the TSUNAMI RT crew topping free practice.

Fontana jumped to the head of the leaderboard setting two rapid times in the final five minutes of the two-hour session, his 1:57.655 sealing first place for the No. 79 911 GT3 R.

Mathys Jaubert may have been a late addition to the GT3 lineup for this weekend’s contest, but he made his mark in practice and looked set to top the times in the Lionspeed Porsche 911 GT3 R until Fontana’s late improvements.

Instead, Jaubert’s 1:58.117 time, set in the middle of the session, was good enough for second – albeit almost half a second adrift of Fontana’s best.

The third Porsche towards the summit of the table was the No. 87 Origine by CC machine that also enjoyed some late improvements from Ye Hongli to round out the top three on 1:58.155.

Quickest non-Porsche was the No. 18 Sainteloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, courtesy of a 1:58.229 from Stephane Tribaudini.

Completing the top five were the No. 669 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO, thanks to Ben Tuck, and Alessandro Ghiretti’s effort in the EBM Porsche.

The top Mercedes crew was the Grove Racing by Getspeed squad in seventh, thanks to Jules Gounon’s 1:58.416.

The top 12 GT3 entries were separated by a second, but this would have increased to over 20 cars when discounting Fontana’s late flyers.

There was a 1-2 for SebLajoux Racing in the 992 class with its No. 888 machine outpacing the sister No. 910 entry by six tenths. Ironically, that meant Jaubert was second in two different classes as he is among the No. 910’s driver roster.

Meanwhile, the Rossa LM GT was fastest in the GTX division, just a tenth quicker than the Team CMR Ginetta G56 GT2.

Further back, the Circuit Toys Toyota GR Supra GT4 headed the small three-car GT4 cluster.