The #24 OAK Racing Morgan took the top spot in FP1 ©DPPI/ELMS

Ahead of our from the track coverage, below are the results from the first and second practice sessions for the European Le Mans Series at Donington Park. The ELMS makes its debut in name, but not in nature, to the full grand prix layout at Donington Park. The series visited as the Le Mans Series in 2009 before switching it's UK round to Silverstone for 2010 and 2011. Now that the AUTOSPORT 6 Hours of Silverstone has been effectively Hi-Jacked by the World Endurance Championship, we get the chance to see Prototypes through the Craner Curves.

Free Practice 1 then was taken by the Oak Racing Morgan-Judd of team owner, Jaques Nicolet and Matthieu Lehaye. The pair completed 18 laps in the session posting a 1:39.962 to take the top spot. The sister car, powered by a Nissan engine rather than the BMW derived Judd unit, placed third in the session 1.260 seconds off the bosses car. The two Morgans were split by the Zytek Z11SN-Nissan of defending champion team, Greaves Motorsport, 0.938 seconds off the session lead.

In the GTE battle, it was an easy top spot for the #66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari, the only car in the Pro Class. Saying that though, both of the LM GTE Am machines bested the "professional" crew, the AF Corse team going almost eight seconds faster.

Free Practice 2 was more of the same for the GTE cars. Once again, both the Am entered cars bested the #66 machine, running the the Pro class. This time the gap was less than six seconds though, giving some hope to the British outfit. Once again, the Ferrari beat the Porsche to the top spot, though it was by fractions, not whole seconds.

In prototypes it was slightly different. For one, the Loeb machine got out to turn a lap, covering 23 tours of the circuit. It also placed third in the LMP2 class, 1.903 off the lead. That went to the only coupe on the entry list. The Irish entered Murphy Prototypes Lola B12/80 Nissan went almost three seconds faster than the P1 best time to take the top of the class ahead of the #24 OAK machine, the erstwhile table-toppers. Still, the LMPC car failed to best even the slowest of the GTE cars.

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