+ Result: Night Practice
Harmony’s ‘Ramen Rocket’ picked up where it left off in testing by setting Friday’s fastest time during Night Practice for the Suzuka 1000km.
Dennis Marschall’s 2m01.536s was just 0.028s quicker than fellow Ferrari driver Giancarlo Fisichella who ensured that a Bronze and Pro-Am entry ended the day one-two overall.
Six tenths separated Marschall’s time from that of co-driver Lorenzo Patrese who’d earlier set the pace during a wet/dry second test, while 0.013s covered the 296 and Bingo Racing’s Test 1 topping Callaway Corvette.
A day of mixed conditions ensured that none of the three sessions were entirely rain-free. However, drivers enjoyed the most prolonged period of dry running this evening when two red flags punctuated the 90-minute session.
Maezawa Racing’s Ferrari found the gravel trap on the outside of The Esses early on before a second stoppage occurred moments after the restart when JMR’s #99 Corvette experienced a spectacular engine failure.
The team’s Pro car briefly jumped to the top once Night Practice resumed but was pushed back by Fisichella and then Marschall in quick sucession.
Porsche joined Ferrari in the top three thanks to Laurens Vanthoor and Absolute Racing’s NewMan-liveried 911, which lapped one tenth shy of the fastest time.
The late improvement from Alexander Sims moved JMR back up to fourth ahead of EBM’s Porsche driven by Harry King and Absolute’s other car in the hands of Loek Hartog.
Mercedes-AMG’s fastest car, the Craft-Bamboo Pro class example, rounded out the top 10, while WRT’s M4s – which spearhead BMW’s assault on IGTC this weekend – were down in 13th and 16th overall.
Having failed to set a representative lap time in either of the two earlier sessions due to turbo problems, the K-tunes Racing Ferrari did not emerge from the garage at all during the 90-minute night session.
The 49th Summer Endurance Race weekend continues with Pre-Qualifying – the first session to be live on youtube.com/gtworld – at 10:45 JST (GMT +9) on Saturday.