Nurburgring WEC: Porsche fastest in delayed third practice
Mark Webber kept Porsche in command in a delayed third and final practice session for the WEC 6 Hours of Nurburgring, beating closest challenger Toyota by just under three tenths.
#1 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley
Vision Sport Agency
The session began 45 minutes later than scheduled due to fog that prevented the medical helicopter from taking off, and was held in damp conditions when proceedings finally got underway.
But the track rapidly dried out, with the LMP1 runners quickly switching from wets to slicks – and by the halfway stage, they were setting times to rival Friday’s dry running.
In the end, Webber came within 0.005s of his benchmark from FP2 with a best time of 1m41.002s in the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid, beating the #5 Toyota TS050 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson by 0.291s.
Lucas di Grassi made it three different manufacturers in the top three as he set a time of 1m41.542s in the #8 Audi R18 e-tron quattro, in which Loic Duval suffered a late spin at Turn 2.
The sister #7 Audi was fourth fastest with Andre Lotterer at the wheel, the German setting a best effort 1m41.999s, ahead of Marc Lieb in the #2 Porsche and Mike Conway in the #6 Toyota.
The #13 Rebellion R-One remained the quickest of the LMP1 privateer entries, 5.899s off the pace.
In LMP2, Rene Rast grabbed the top spot for the G-Drive team in the #26 Oreca, making the most of the conditions late in the session to set a 1m50.260s.
That was enough to beat the #44 Manor Oreca of Antonio Pizzonia by 0.723s.
Signatech’s pair of Alpines were third and fourth quickest, the #35 of David Cheng beating the #36 of Nicolas Lapierre.
Ferrari took a convincing one-two in the GTE Pro class, with Gianmaria Bruni putting the #51 car top of the pile in the closing stages with a 1m57.145s.
Davide Rigon was 0.220s shy in the #71 car, while Harry Tincknell put the best of the Ford GTs in third place, just over half a second of the pace in class.
The GTE Am division was topped by the #88 Porsche of David Heinemeier Hansson, who posted a best effort of 2m00.360s.
FP3 results:
Pos | # | Drivers | Car | Class | Laps | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Mark Webber Timo Bernhard Brendon Hartley |
Porsche 919 Hybrid | LMP1 | 24 | 1'41.002 | |
2 | 5 | Anthony Davidson Kazuki Nakajima Sébastien Buemi |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 28 | 1'41.293 | 0.291 |
3 | 8 | Lucas di Grassi Loic Duval Oliver Jarvis |
Audi R18 | LMP1 | 29 | 1'41.542 | 0.540 |
4 | 7 | Andre Lotterer Marcel Fassler |
Audi R18 | LMP1 | 29 | 1'41.999 | 0.997 |
5 | 2 | Romain Dumas Neel Jani Marc Lieb |
Porsche 919 Hybrid | LMP1 | 24 | 1'42.239 | 1.237 |
6 | 6 | Stéphane Sarrazin Kamui Kobayashi Mike Conway |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 30 | 1'42.309 | 1.307 |
7 | 13 | Alexandre Imperatori Dominik Kraihamer Matheo Tuscher |
Rebellion R-One | LMP1 | 23 | 1'46.901 | 5.899 |
8 | 12 | Nick Heidfeld Nicolas Prost Mathias Beche |
Rebellion R-One | LMP1 | 26 | 1'47.323 | 6.321 |
9 | 4 | Simon Trummer Oliver Webb Pierre Kaffer |
CLM P1/01 | LMP1 | 25 | 1'47.632 | 6.630 |
10 | 26 | Roman Rusinov René Rast Alex Brundle |
Oreca 05 | LMP2 | 27 | 1'50.260 | 9.258 |
11 | 44 | Antonio Pizzonia Matthew Howson Tor Graves |
Oreca 05 | LMP2 | 24 | 1'50.983 | 9.981 |
12 | 35 | Nelson Panciatici Ho-Pin Tung David Cheng |
Alpine A460 | LMP2 | 26 | 1'51.246 | 10.244 |
13 | 36 | Nicolas Lapierre Gustavo Menezes Stéphane Richelmi |
Alpine A460 | LMP2 | 28 | 1'51.387 | 10.385 |
14 | 45 | Roberto Merhi Richard Bradley Matthew Rao |
Oreca 05 | LMP2 | 24 | 1'51.597 | 10.595 |
15 | 37 | Vitaly Petrov Viktor Shaytar Kirill Ladygin |
BR01 | LMP2 | 22 | 1'51.968 | 10.966 |
16 | 43 | Bruno Senna Ricardo Gonzalez Filipe Albuquerque |
Ligier JS P2 | LMP2 | 25 | 1'52.088 | 11.086 |
17 | 30 | Scott Sharp Ed Brown Johannes van Overbeek |
Ligier JS P2 | LMP2 | 22 | 1'52.298 | 11.296 |
18 | 42 | Nick Leventis Jonny Kane Lewis Williamson |
Gibson 015S | LMP2 | 27 | 1'52.537 | 11.535 |
19 | 27 | Maurizio Mediani David Markozov Nicolas Minassian |
BR01 | LMP2 | 27 | 1'52.700 | 11.698 |
20 | 31 | Pipo Derani Ryan Dalziel Chris Cumming |
Ligier JS P2 | LMP2 | 27 | 1'53.141 | 12.139 |
21 | 51 | Gianmaria Bruni James Calado |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE PRO | 23 | 1'57.145 | 16.143 |
22 | 71 | Sam Bird Davide Rigon |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE PRO | 23 | 1'57.365 | 16.363 |
23 | 67 | Harry Tincknell Andy Priaulx Marino Franchitti |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 27 | 1'57.530 | 16.528 |
24 | 97 | Darren Turner Richie Stanaway |
Aston Martin Vantage V8 | LMGTE PRO | 25 | 1'58.134 | 17.132 |
25 | 77 | Richard Lietz Michael Christensen |
Porsche 911 RSR (2016) | LMGTE PRO | 20 | 1'58.371 | 17.369 |
26 | 95 | Marco Sorensen Nicki Thiim |
Aston Martin Vantage V8 | LMGTE PRO | 27 | 1'58.581 | 17.579 |
27 | 66 | Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 25 | 1'58.831 | 17.829 |
28 | 88 | David Heinemeier Hansson Patrick Long Khaled Al Qubaisi |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 23 | 2'00.360 | 19.358 |
29 | 83 | François Perrodo Emmanuel Collard Rui Aguas |
Ferrari F458 Italia | LMGTE AM | 25 | 2'00.926 | 19.924 |
30 | 78 | Christian Ried Wolf Henzler Joel Camathias |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 27 | 2'00.996 | 19.994 |
31 | 50 | Paolo Ruberti Pierre Ragues Yutaka Yamagishi |
Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06 | LMGTE AM | 22 | 2'01.057 | 20.055 |
32 | 98 | Pedro Lamy Paul Dalla Lana Mathias Lauda |
Aston Martin Vantage V8 | LMGTE AM | 26 | 2'01.633 | 20.631 |
33 | 86 | Michael Wainwright Adam Carroll Ben Barker |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 22 | 2'02.005 | 21.003 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments