Sebring WEC: Toyota remains ahead in night practice

Jose Maria Lopez put the #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid ahead with an early best lap of 1m41.730s, going marginally quicker than Kazuki Nakajima had managed in first practice earlier in the day.

The Argentine's time would remain untroubled for the remainder of the 90-minute session.

Nakajima was again the quickest of the #8 Toyota drivers, but his best effort of 1m42.517s, which came around the halfway mark, was 0.787s adrift.

There was some late drama for the #8 crew when Fernando Alonso suffered a spin at Turn 1, albeit without consequences.

SMP Racing reversed the non-hybrid LMP1 pecking order from FP1 with the third and fourth-fastest times for its pair of AER-powered BR Engineering BR1s.

Stephane Sarrazin posted a marginally quicker time in the #17 car, 1.279s off the pace and exactly one hundredth up on SMP newcomer Brendon Hartley in the #11 machine.

Thomas Laurent headed the Rebellion Racing charge in fifth place, ahead of Bruno Senna in the second Rebellion R13-Gibson and Ben Hanley in the DragonSpeed BR1.

Jackie Chan DC Racing led the way in the LMP2 class courtesy of a 1m47.716s effort from Stephane Richelmi at the wheel of the #37 Oreca 07.

That was enough to beat Nicolas Lapierre in the #36 Signatech Alpine Oreca by just under half a second.

The DragonSpeed Oreca caused an early full-course yellow when it shed its left-rear wheel while Anthony Davidson was aboard, although the American squad was able to return to the track after a delay of almost an hour.

GTE Pro was led by Aston Martin as Alex Lynn logged a best of 1m57.792s in the #97 Vantage GTE.

Ford occupied the next two spots in class, as Harry Tincknell's time in the #67 fell just short 0.033s short of Lynn's but eclipsed teammate Stefan Mucke's by a tenth.

The best of the Ferrari 488 GTEs, the #51 car, was fifth, behind the #95 Aston Martin, while Porsche's top representative was the points-leading #92 car in sixth.

Corvette Racing's sole C7.R propped up the class leaderboard in 11th.

Ben Barker put in a late flyer of 1m59.327s to move the Gulf Racing Porsche squad to the top of the times in GTE Am, a little under a tenth up on Giancarlo Fisichella's Spirit of Race Ferrari.

Project 1 Racing, which didn't take part in FP1 as it built up the spare chassis that arrived at Sebring on Wednesday morning, completed 27 laps and ended up eighth of the nine runners in class.

Practice times:

Pos.	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Time	Gap
1	7	Kamui Kobayashi   Mike Conway   Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	45	1'41.730
2	8	Fernando Alonso   Kazuki Nakajima   Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	48	1'42.262	0.532
3	17	Sergey Sirotkin   Stéphane Sarrazin   Egor Orudzhev	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	34	1'43.009	1.279
4	11	Vitaly Petrov   Brendon Hartley   Mikhail Aleshin	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	31	1'43.019	1.289
5	3	Nathanael Berthon   Thomas Laurent   Gustavo Menezes	Rebellion R13	LMP1	36	1'43.362	1.632
6	1	Bruno Senna   Neel Jani   Mathias Beche	Rebellion R13	LMP1	40	1'44.064	2.334
7	10	Henrik Hedman   Renger van der Zande   Ben Hanley	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	34	1'46.050	4.320
8	38	Ho-Pin Tung   Stéphane Richelmi   Gabriel Aubry	Oreca 07	LMP2	37	1'47.716	5.986
9	36	Nicolas Lapierre   Pierre Thiriet   Andre Negrao	Alpine A470	LMP2	40	1'48.213	6.483
10	28	Loic Duval   François Perrodo   Matthieu Vaxiviere	Oreca 07	LMP2	40	1'48.316	6.586
11	37	Will Stevens   David Heinemeier Hansson   Jordan King	Oreca 07	LMP2	40	1'49.119	7.389
12	50	Gunnar Jeannette   Romano Ricci   Erwin Creed	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	38	1'50.463	8.733
13	31	Anthony Davidson   Pastor Maldonado   Roberto Gonzalez	Oreca 07	LMP2	18	1'50.497	8.767
14	29	Giedo van der Garde   Nyck de Vries   Frits van Eerd	Dallara P217	LMP2	8	1'53.842	12.112
15	97	Maxime Martin   Alex Lynn	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	38	1'57.792	16.062
16	67	Harry Tincknell   Jonathan Bomarito   Andy Priaulx	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	35	1'57.825	16.095
17	66	Stefan Mücke   Olivier Pla   Billy Johnson	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	35	1'57.961	16.231
18	51	James Calado   Alessandro Pier Guidi   Daniel Serra	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	33	1'58.063	16.333
19	95	Marco Sorensen   Nicki Thiim   Darren Turner	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	35	1'58.098	16.368
20	92	Michael Christensen   Kevin Estre	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	38	1'58.388	16.658
21	91	Gianmaria Bruni   Richard Lietz	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	40	1'58.447	16.717
22	71	Sam Bird   Davide Rigon   Miguel Molina	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	39	1'58.622	16.892
23	82	Antonio Felix da Costa   Bruno Spengler   Augusto Farfus	BMW M8 GTE	LMGTE PRO	37	1'58.706	16.976
24	81	Nick Catsburg   Martin Tomczyk   Alexander Sims	BMW M8 GTE	LMGTE PRO	40	1'58.731	17.001
25	63	Jan Magnussen   Antonio Garcia   Mike Rockenfeller	Chevrolet Corvette C7R	LMGTE PRO	29	1'58.795	17.065
26	86	Michael Wainwright   Benjamin Barker   Thomas Preining	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	38	1'59.327	17.597
27	54	Giancarlo Fisichella   Francesco Castellacci   Thomas Flohr	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	37	1'59.407	17.677
28	88	Gianluca Roda   Matteo Cairoli   Giorgio Roda	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	36	1'59.457	17.727
29	61	Matthew Griffin   Matteo Cressoni  Luis Perez Companc	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	34	1'59.549	17.819
30	98	Pedro Lamy   Paul Dalla Lana   Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE AM	35	1'59.778	18.048
31	70	Olivier Beretta   Eddie Cheever III   Motoaki Ishikawa	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	37	1'59.853	18.123
32	77	Christian Ried  Matthew Campbell  Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	18	2'00.136	18.406
33	56	Jörg Bergmeister   Patrick Lindsey   Egidio Perfetti	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	32	2'00.156	18.426
34	90	Jonathan Adam   Salih Yoluc   Charles Eastwood	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE AM	40	2'00.789	19.059