Spa WEC: Porsche reasserts its authority in final practice

The German set what would prove the benchmark time in the #1 919 Hybrid at the very start of the 60-minute session, his 1m56.465s blitzing the 1m58.012s set by squadmate Brendon Hartley on Thursday.

It was enough to lead the sister #2 Porsche by 1.698s, whose best time of 1m58.163s came courtesy of Neel Jani inside the final 20 minutes.

Toyota, which took a surprise 1-2 in Thursday's second practice, beat Audi to secure the third-best time, Stephane Sarrazin clocking a 1m58.327s in the #6 TS050 Hybrid.

That was two tenths better than the Frenchman's session-topping effort from the opening day, and enough to beat the #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Andre Lotterer by six tenths.

Completing the top six were the #5 Toyota and the #8 Audi, which suffered another mishap as Loic Duval made contact with the #78 Proton Porsche 911 of Christian Ried at the Bus Stop chicane.

The R18 sustained front-left suspension damage that resulted in the car crabbing badly as it returned to the pits, although Audi was able to carry out repairs and get the #8 back out before the end of the session.

Rebellion continued its streak as top LMP1 privateer in seventh, the #13 R-One beating the #4 ByKolles by 1.5s to take class honours.

G-Drive tops LMP2, Ferrari quickest in GTE

In the LMP2 class, it was the #26 G-Drive Oreca that led the way by four tenths, courtesy of an early time from Rene Rast.

The Audi factory driver posted a 2m07.341s, half a second up on the best time in class on Thursday, to lead the two Signatech Alpine cars, the #35 beating the #36 to take the class runner-up spot.

GTE-Pro was once again topped by Ferrari, as James Calado posted a 2m17.874s in the #51 488 Italia to lead the sister #71 car by four tenths.

Aston Martin was best of the rest in third, Nicki Thiim setting a best effort of 2m18.730s in the #95, while a late effort of 2m19.860s from Mathias Lauda also saw the British marque lead the GTE-Am class.

Practice times:

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Mark Webber  Brendon Hartley  Timo Bernhard	Porsche 919 Hybrid '16	1:56.465
2	Marc Lieb  Romain Dumas  Neel Jani	Porsche 919 Hybrid '16	1:58.163	+1.698
3	Kamui Kobayashi  Mike Conway  Stéphane Sarrazin	Toyota TS050 HYBRID	1:58.327	+1.862
4	Andre Lotterer  Benoit Tréluyer  Marcel Fassler	Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16	1:58.976	+2.511
5	Anthony Davidson  Kazuki Nakajima  Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 HYBRID	1:59.440	+2.975
6	Loic Duval  Oliver Jarvis  Lucas di Grassi	Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16	2:00.295	+3.830
7	Alexandre Imperatori  Matheo Tuscher  Dominik Kraihamer	Rebellion R-One	2:02.751	+6.286
8	James Rossiter  Oliver Webb  Simon Trummer	CLM P1/01	2:04.239	+7.774
9	Nelson Piquet Jr.  Nick Heidfeld  Nicolas Prost	Rebellion R-One	2:04.718	+8.253
10	Roman Rusinov  René Rast  Nathanael Berthon	ORECA 05	2:07.341	+10.876
11	Nelson Panciatici  Ho-Pin Tung  David Cheng	Alpine A460	2:07.771	+11.306
12	Nicolas Lapierre  Gustavo Menezes  Stéphane Richelmi	Alpine A460	2:08.111	+11.646
13	Tor Graves  Will Stevens  James Jakes	ORECA 05	2:08.768	+12.303
14	Ricardo Gonzalez  Filipe Albuquerque  Bruno Senna	Ligier JS P2	2:09.494	+13.029
15	Devi Markozov  Nicolas Minassian  Maurizio Mediani	BR Engineering BR01	2:09.759	+13.294
16	Jonny Kane  Nick Leventis  Danny Watts	Gibson 015S	2:09.785	+13.320
17	Simon Dolan  Giedo van der Garde  Jake Dennis	Gibson 015S	2:09.972	+13.507
18	Vitaly Petrov  Kirill Ladygin  Viktor Shaytar	BR Engineering BR01	2:10.155	+13.690
19	Ryan Dalziel  Pipo Derani  Chris Cumming	Ligier JS P2	2:10.764	+14.299
20	Roberto Merhi  Matt Rao  Richard Bradley	ORECA 05	2:11.006	+14.541
21	Scott Sharp  Ed Brown  Johannes van Overbeek	Ligier JS P2	2:11.364	+14.899
22	Gianmaria Bruni  James Calado	Ferrari 488 GTE	2:17.874	+21.409
23	Davide Rigon  Sam Bird	Ferrari 488 GTE	2:18.203	+21.738
24	Nicki Thiim  Marco Sorensen  Darren Turner	Aston Martin Vantage V8	2:18.730	+22.265
25	Jonathan Adam  Richie Stanaway  Fernando Rees	Aston Martin Vantage V8	2:19.255	+22.790
26	Andy Priaulx  Marino Franchitti  Harry Tincknell	Ford GT '16	2:19.858	+23.393
27	Pedro Lamy  Paul Dalla Lana  Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage V8	2:19.860	+23.395
28	Richard Lietz  Michael Christensen	Porsche 911 RSR	2:20.022	+23.557
29	Paolo Ruberti  Yutaka Yamagishi  Pierre Ragues	Chevrolet Corvette C7 GT3	2:20.494	+24.029
30	Christian Ried  Joel Camathias  Wolf Henzler	Porsche 911 RSR	2:20.767	+24.302
31	Billy Johnson  Olivier Pla  Stefan Mücke	Ford GT '16	2:20.941	+24.476
32	Khaled Al Qubaisi  David Heinemeier Hansson  Patrick Long	Porsche 911 RSR	2:20.965	+24.500
33	Emmanuel Collard  Rui Aguas  François Perrodo	Ferrari F458 Italia	2:21.062	+24.597
34	Mike Wainwright  Adam Carroll  Ben Barker	Porsche 911 RSR	2:21.403	+24.938