No. 51 Ferrari Crashes as Porsche Tops Incident-Filled FP2

Photo: MPS Agency

Porsche’s No. 6 car topped a disrupted second practice session for this weekend’s Spa round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, as a major crash for the No. 51 Ferrari at Eau Rouge caused the first of three red flag interruptions.

What was originally scheduled as a 90-minute session was brought to a halt almost immediately as Antonio Giovinazzi spun at the top of Eau Rouge and hit the barriers at high-speed, causing significant damage to the No. 51 Ferrari 499P (pictured top).

Giovinazzi himself was unharmed but the car did not return to the track for the remainder of the session.

When the session resumed, a full-course yellow was called following contact between the two Alpine A424s of Charles Milesi and Mick Schumacher that left debris on the circuit, before the session was stopped for a second time.

That followed a heavy front-end impact for WEC debutant Stephen Grove in the No. 60 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, again at Eau Rouge. Grove was taken to the medical center as a precaution but was cleared of injury.

The two interruptions caused the session to be extended by 30 minutes to two hours, but there was a third red flag when The Heart of Racing’s Tom Gamble suffered a crash at Pouhon aboard the No. 007 Aston Martin Valkyrie.

The session resumed with 24 minutes left on the clock but was not extended further.

Most of the top times in Hypercar were set in the window between the first two red flags, with Kevin Estre recording the quickest time of 2:01.475s aboard the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport car, putting him 0.091 seconds clear of the field.

Antonio Fuoco was second-fastest in the surviving works No. 50 Ferrari 499P, followed by Robin Frijns at the wheel of the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8.

The No. 50 Ferrari was later involved in an incident while Miguel Molina was at the wheel, suffering front-end damage, but the Spaniard was able to return to the pits.

Alex Lynn put the No. 12 Cadillac V-Series.R in fourth, followed by the second of the factory Porsches, the No. 5 in car in which Julien Andlauer set the best time.

Toyota’s top representative was the No. 7 GR010 Hybrid of Kamui Kobayashi in seventh behind the third-string No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kubica.

The respective top entries from Alpine and Peugeot, the No. 36 and the No. 94, completed the top ten behind the second of the BMWs, the No. 15.

In LMGT3, Zacharie Robichon set the fastest time of 2:18.326 in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo relatively early in the session.

Clemens Schmid was second-fastest in the No. 87 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3, 0.052 seconds behind, while Davide Rigon was third in the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.

Final practice for the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps is set to take place on Friday 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. EDT).