The No.14 Porsche 919 Hybrid topped the first free practice session of 2014 as the World Endurance Championship kicked off at Silverstone.
The No.14, which for this session was driven by Marc Lieb and Neel Jani, topped the time sheets on a 1:44.042, 0.428s faster than the defending champions Loïc Duval and Tom Kristensen in the No.1 Audi R18 e-tron Quattro. In third place was the No.8 Toyota TS040 of Anthony Davidson, who set a lap time of 1:44.661 to go ahead of the second Audi by 0.056s.
The two Rebellion Racing Lola B12/60 –Toyota’s finished in seventh and eighth place, with the No.12 ahead of the No.13 respectivly, setting a time of 1:45.593.
In the depleted LMP2 class it was tight affair, with all four cars covered by 1.5 seconds, with the first car, the No.26 G-Drive Morgan-Nissan, setting a 1:51.004 to go 0.739s ahead of the No.27 SMP Racing Oreca 03-Nissan. The No.47 KCMG Oreca and the second SMP Oreca, the No.37, rounded out the class on a 1:52.330 and 1:52.538 respectively.
In LMGTE-Pro Porsche was ahead again, with the two Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 911 RSR’s setting lap times of 1:58.981 and 2:00.455, with the No.91 ahead of the No.92. In third place was the first of three Ferrari’s, with the No.51 AF Corse 458 of defending champion Gimmi Bruni and Finnish driver Toni Vilander setting a lap time of 2:00.519, 0.284s quicker than the No.52 RAM Racing 458 of Matt Griffin and Alvaro Parante.
In sixth and seventh places though are home favourites Aston Martin Racing, with the No.97 Vantage lapping in 2:01.853, with the No.99 only managing a 2:02.075 around the 5.8km track.
And finally in LMGTE-Am, the No.81 AF Corse finished the session top on a 2:01.210 with GP2 ace Sam Bird at the wheel. In second was another Porsche, this time the non-factory entry of Proton Competition, with the No.88 setting a 2:02.023, with another AF Corse entry, this time the No.61, third on a 2:02.033.
The session past without any major incidents, with the second session due to go green at 1555.
