The first free practice session for the WEC race in Sao Paulo was prematurely stopped with red flags. The race management announced the end of the 90-minute session as a result of an accident involving Arnold Robin. The Frenchman crashed Akkodis’ #78 Lexus RC F GT3 in turn 4.
Exact details of the circumstances were not initially known. When asked by Motorsport-Magazin.com A WEC spokesman said: “The driver was rescued from the car and is being examined at the medical center as a precautionary measure.”
WEC training in Sao Paulo aborted prematurely after accident
The 39-year-old bronze driver crashed after 46 minutes. A short time later, the race management team around Race Director Eduardo Freitas waved red flags. After a 24-minute break, Freitas decided to end the first practice session. There were still 20 minutes to go, but after Robin’s impact, the repair work in the corner took longer.
Robin shares the #78 GT3-Lexus in Sao Paulo with DTM driver Kelvin van der Linde and the Austrian Clemens Schmid, who succeeded the original regular driver Timur Boguslavskiy.
Training on Friday morning local time began on a wet track after a previous heavy rain shower. During the session, the Brazilian circuit, which is hosting the WEC for the first time since 2014, continued to dry out and allowed laps on slick tires. The fifth race of the 2024 World Endurance Championship season and the first race after the 24 Hours of Le Mans will take place in Sao Paulo.
Nico Müller leads Peugeot to the best time in training
The best time in the aborted training was achieved by Nico Müller in the #93 Peugeot 9X8 (Vergne, Jensen, Nico Müller). The Swiss needed 1:26.341 minutes for his fastest lap on the 4.309-kilometer Formula 1 circuit. The Peugeot completed 26 laps and thus collected the most kilometers in the field of 19 Hypercars, which are supplemented by 18 LMGT3 cars.
The fact that training was stopped halfway through the session is likely to cause a lot of headaches for most teams. No participant had completed private test drives at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace in Interlagos beforehand. There is no data on the hypercars due to their absence from the WEC racing calendar. In addition, some drivers have never driven on the demanding course – every minute of training is worth its weight in gold before qualifying on Saturday and the 6-hour race on Sunday.
The second free practice session begins today at 8:15 p.m. German time. The originally 90-minute session will be extended by 45 minutes to 2:15 hours by order of the race management.
Mike Conway back in Toyota after accident
Due to the shortness of the training, the lap times are of very limited significance. Behind the Peugeot, the #2 Cadillac (Bamber, Lynn) with Earl Bamber at the wheel took second place. 0.179 seconds separated the New Zealander from the leader Müller. The best-placed of the five Andre Lotterer drove the Porsche 963 to third place in the classification. The three-time Le Mans winner shares the #6 with Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor, the trio leading the drivers’ championship.
In fourth to eighth place were the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid (Buemi, Hartley, Hirakawa), the #83 Ferrari from AF Corse (Kubica, Shwartzman, Ye), the #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 (Sheldon van der Linde, Rast, Frijns), the #50 Ferrari of Le Mans winners Miguel Molina/Nicklas Nielsen/Antonio Fuoco and the second Toyota with starting number #7 (Kobayashi, De Vries, Conway). Toyota driver Mike Conway has returned to the cockpit after missing Le Mans due to a bicycle accident.
In the LMGT3 class, the #59 McLaren 720 S GT3 from United Autosports (Cottingham, Costa, Saucy) led ahead of the two Aston Martin Vantage GT3s from the Heart of Racing (James, Mancinelli, Riberas) and D’Station Racing (Mateu, Bastard, Sorensen) teams.