WEC Prologue begins at Lusail

The FIA World Endurance Championship’s Prologue (pre-season testing) began yesterday at the Lusail International Circuit, ahead of this weekend’s opening leg – the Qatar Airways Qatar 1812 KM.
Yesterday, the three-hour session was made optional as a result of the late arrival of the freight in Qatar due to shipping delays, which forced the postponement of the test from Saturday and Sunday to yesterday and today (Monday and Tuesday).
The second session of the Prologue, in which participation was mandatory, was scheduled to finish at 11pm last night. Today, two more sessions will be held from 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm. There will be no change to the schedule for the season-opening Qatar 1812km with the race set to begin at 11am this Saturday.
Yesterday, only nine cars of the 37 cars entered took part in the first session. Of the Hypercar field, only Isotta Fraschini and Hertz Team Jota took to the track, while three teams in LMGT3 – United Autosports, TF Sport and Iron Lynx – also opted for early track time.
Jota Porsche squad topped the timesheet with Norman Nato quickest of the three Hypercar class entries that took part after registering a time of 1m41.822s aboard the #12 Porsche 963 LMDh. That put him nearly a second and a half up on the sister #38 car in which Jenson Button posted a 1m43.206s.
The #38 Jota entry was quickest for the entire session, Will Stevens getting down to a 1m43.595s initially before Callum Ilott improved to 1m42.640s and then Nato to 1m42.459s.
The only other entry from the 19-car Hypercar field to participate was the Duqueine-run Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 LMH Competizione. The Italian Le Mans Hypercar developed by Michelotto Engineering ended up a distant third in the times after failing to complete a flying lap over the first two hours.
Jean-Karl Vernay eventually got down to a 1m45.928s in the Isotta, which is set to make its race debut in this weekend’s Qatar 1812Km WEC season-opener. The six cars in the new LMGT3 class were headed by the best of the United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evos.