+Result: Pre-Qualifying, Jeddah
A late effort from Benjamin Lariche proved just enough to keep he and team-mate Robert Consani on top of the times during the final preparations for Qualifying later, with the #3 Audi just edging out its rivals.
Having topped all four sessions yesterday, Team Speedcar kept up the momentum with Lariche’s late-session best handing the car a slender 0.072s advantage heading into what promises to be a decisive Qualifying session this evening.
After missing Free Practice due to a technical issue, the championship-leading #78 Elite Motorsport McLaren returned to action, and Josh Rattican immediately put it fastest early in the session.
Consani then fought back, but as the track evolved throughout the first session of the day the benchmark time was shuffled between Benjamin Lessennes (L’Espace Bienvenue BMW), Tom Emson (Elite Motorsport McLaren), Jamie Day (Mirage Racing Aston Martin) and Alex Denning (Elite McLaren) before Lluc Ibañez set three laps good enough for top spot in the #15 NM Racing Team Mercedes-AMG, even if one was taken from the Spaniard for track limits.
Ibañez looked to have secured the result, before Lariche slipped past in the closing minutes and any chance to respond was taken away when the #12 Borusan Otomotiv BMW picked up damage and ground to a halt on track, bringing out the red flags and ending the session early. Ibañez and Alex Papadopulos were second, ahead of Rattican/Lebbon and Denning/Emson in the twin Elite Arturas.
AVR Avvatar continued its impressive return to the championship with Alban Varutti and Julien Piguet taking both fifth overall and top spot in Pro-Am. Title-chasers Aleksandr Vaintrub and Stanislav Safronov were second in class in their Mirage Racing Aston Martin, while Gustavo Xavier and Richard Wolf completed the top three in their Razoon – More than Racing Porsche.
Florent Grizaud and Kevin Jimenez just held off Laurent Hurgon and Pascal Huteau in the Am class to secure top spot for GPA Racing’s Aston Martin, albeit only 0.1s ahead of the Schumacher CLRT Alpine. Andy Cantu and Charles Dawson again completed the top three in class for NM Racing Team.
Qualifying is scheudled to get underway at 18:00 local time.
