Sebring WEC: Toyota under lap record again in FP1

The Japanese driver posted a 1m41.957s with only a couple of minutes left on the clock of the 90-minute session aboard the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid to better the 1m42.506s set by Jose Maria Lopez in the sister #7 car early on. 

That was slower than the best time set by Mike Conway in pre-event testing last weekend but still comfortably faster than Marcel Fassler's Sebring 12 Hours qualifying record from 2013.

Lopez and Sebastien Buemi did the lion's share of the running in the two Toyotas after missing last weekend's test because they were on Formula E duty in Hong Kong. 

The two Rebellion R-13s ended up third and fourth in the times. 

Gustavo Menezes initially led the chase of the Toyotas with a 1m43.664s in the team's #3 entry, before Andre Lotterer's replacement in the #1, Mathias Beche, bettered it with a 1m43.552s with 20 minutes remaining. 

SMP Racing took fifth and sixth in the times with its pair of BR Engineering BR1s, team newcomer Brendon Hartley leading the way with a 1m43.483s.

Racing Team Nederland's Dallara P217 was quickest in LMP2 courtesy of a 1m47.835s from Nyck de Vries. 

The lap put him half a second up on Andre Negrao's 1m48.346s time in the Signatech Alpine Oreca 07 - giving Michelin a one-two after Signatech's winter switch from Dunlop tyres.

Matthieu Vaxiviere was third fastest in the TDS Racing Oreca on Dunlops with a 1m48.786s. 

Maxime Martin set the pace for Aston Martin in the GTE Pro class. 

The Belgian posted a 1m58.044s in his Aston Martin Vantage GTE to go faster than Harry Tincknell's 1m58.356s set aboard the best of the Ganassi Ford GTs early in the session. 

The two factory Porsche 911 RSRs ended up third and fourth fastest in the hands of Richard Lietz and Kevin Estre respectively. 

Lietz's 1m58.577s was less than two hundredths quicker than Estre managed in the sister car.

Marco Sorensen took fifth in the second Aston ahead of Ford's Stefan Mucke and the two MTEK-run BMW M8 GTEs. 

Pedro Lamy was fastest in GTE Am for Aston Martin with a time just nine thousandths quicker than Dempsey-Proton Porsche driver Matteo Cairoli. 

The Project 1 GTE Am team took delivery this morning of a new Porsche 911 RSR to replace the car seriously damaged by fire in the test, but did not take to the track in FP1. 

A red flag was thrown with a little over half an hour remaining, ostensibly for a crash involving Dempsey-Proton driver Gianluca Roda.

However, it turned out Roda had not crashed but had requested medical assistance from the car after an off-track moment, leading race control to stop the session unnecessarily.

Practice times:

Pos.	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	8	Fernando Alonso   Kazuki Nakajima   Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	1'41.957
2	7	Kamui Kobayashi   Mike Conway   Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	1'42.506	0.549
3	1	Bruno Senna   Neel Jani   Mathias Beche	Rebellion R13	LMP1	1'43.552	1.595
4	3	Nathanael Berthon   Thomas Laurent   Gustavo Menezes	Rebellion R13	LMP1	1'43.664	1.707
5	11	Vitaly Petrov   Brendon Hartley   Mikhail Aleshin	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	1'43.843	1.886
6	17	Sergey Sirotkin   Stéphane Sarrazin   Egor Orudzhev	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	1'44.300	2.343
7	10	Henrik Hedman   Renger van der Zande   Ben Hanley	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	1'45.965	4.008
8	29	Giedo van der Garde   Nyck de Vries   Frits van Eerd	Dallara P217	LMP2	1'47.835	5.878
9	36	Nicolas Lapierre   Pierre Thiriet   Andre Negrao	Alpine A470	LMP2	1'48.346	6.389
10	28	Loic Duval   François Perrodo   Matthieu Vaxiviere	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'48.786	6.829
11	37	Will Stevens   David Heinemeier Hansson   Jordan King	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'49.374	7.417
12	38	Ho-Pin Tung   Stéphane Richelmi   Gabriel Aubry	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'49.506	7.549
13	31	Anthony Davidson   Pastor Maldonado   Roberto Gonzalez	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'49.625	7.668
14	50	Gunnar Jeannette   Romano Ricci   Erwin Creed	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	1'51.844	9.887
15	97	Maxime Martin   Alex Lynn	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	1'58.044	16.087
16	67	Harry Tincknell   Jonathan Bomarito   Andy Priaulx	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	1'58.356	16.399
17	91	Gianmaria Bruni   Richard Lietz	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	1'58.577	16.620
18	92	Michael Christensen   Kevin Estre	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	1'58.594	16.637
19	95	Marco Sorensen   Nicki Thiim   Darren Turner	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	1'58.631	16.674
20	66	Stefan Mücke   Olivier Pla   Billy Johnson	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	1'58.682	16.725
21	82	Antonio Felix da Costa   Bruno Spengler   Augusto Farfus	BMW M8 GTE	LMGTE PRO	1'58.757	16.800
22	81	Nick Catsburg   Martin Tomczyk   Alexander Sims	BMW M8 GTE	LMGTE PRO	1'58.823	16.866
23	51	James Calado   Alessandro Pier Guidi   Daniel Serra	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	1'58.823	16.866
24	63	Jan Magnussen   Antonio Garcia   Mike Rockenfeller	Chevrolet Corvette C7R	LMGTE PRO	1'58.937	16.980
25	71	Sam Bird   Davide Rigon   Miguel Molina	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	1'59.448	17.491
26	98	Pedro Lamy   Paul Dalla Lana   Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE AM	2'00.043	18.086
27	88	Gianluca Roda   Matteo Cairoli   Giorgio Roda	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	2'00.052	18.095
28	77	Christian Ried  Matthew Campbell  Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	2'00.079	18.122
29	61	Matthew Griffin   Matteo Cressoni  Luis Perez Companc	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	2'00.082	18.125
30	90	Jonathan Adam   Salih Yoluc   Charles Eastwood	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE AM	2'00.088	18.131
31	54	Giancarlo Fisichella   Francesco Castellacci   Thomas Flohr	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	2'00.256	18.299
32	70	Olivier Beretta   Eddie Cheever III   Motoaki Ishikawa	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	2'00.314	18.357
33	86	Michael Wainwright   Benjamin Barker   Thomas Preining	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	2'00.702	18.745