“Home team” Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus topped the first competitive session of the 2022 FIA World Endurance Championship season at Sebring International Raceway. The New York-based team’s No. 708 SCG 007 Hypercar LMH topped the first 60 minutes of Free Practice ahead of Friday’s FIA WEC season opener, the 1000 Miles of Sebring.
Romain Dumas posted a 1m49.738s in a session that saw heavy showers interrupting fast running. That was enough to fend off the second-fastest car of the session — Matthieu Vaxivierre in the No. 36 Alpine A480 — which was half a second off the best of the Glickenhaus with Sebastien Buemi the quickest of Toyotas’ squad in the No. 8 GR010 Hybrid..
LMP2 saw reigning WEC class champion Ferdinand Habsburg continuing the form he showed in topping the times of last weekend’s pre-season test days to to the class times with a 1m50.477s aboard the No. 41 Realteam by WRT ORECA.
Ex-WRT teammate Louis Deletraz was half a second back in his new mount, the No. 9 Prema Orlen Team ORECA with United Autosports’ ex-Formula 1 racer Paul di Resta rounding out the class top three in the No. 23 car.
Porsche dominated the GT classes with Frenchman Kevin Estre topping GTE Pro with a 1m58.827s in the No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR-19, edging out teammate Gianmaria Bruni’s best effort in the sister No. 91 car by just over half a tenth.
Italian Porsche specialist Matteo Cairoli made it an all-Porsche top three, putting his No. 46 Team Project 1 Porsche ahead of the factory Corvette — the No. 64 car making its full season debut in the WEC. Cairoli’s 1m58.906s was almost a second clear of Tommy Milner’s best.
Next up in the GTE Am class was the No. 88 Dempsey-Proton Porsche of Julien Andlauer, with the No. 98 NorthWest AMR Aston Martin Vantage GTE (Nikki Thiim) completing the top three, the first of the non-Porsches.