Spa WEC: Porsche takes comfortable 1-2 in first practice

The New Zealander topped the times just shy of the halfway mark in the 90-minute session with a best time of 1m58.012s, improving slightly on his teammate Timo Bernhard's early benchmark of 1m58.206s.

Hartley's effort remained the benchmark for the rest of the session, Mark Webber failing to improve when he took over the #1 machine in the final 15 minutes.

The reigning champions finished the session 0.665s up on the sister #2 919 Hybrid, whose best time of 1m58.677s came courtesy of Neel Jani in the early stages.

The #2 car was also shown a black-and-orange flag during the session for a lack of telemetry, which has landed Porsche a fine of €1,000 suspended for the rest of the weekend.

Toyota beat Audi for the honour of best of the rest, with Mike Conway putting the #6 TS050 Hybrid in third place, 1.417s off the pace.

That was enough to edge out Marcel Fassler in the #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro by four tenths, with the #5 Toyota and the #8 Audi completing the top six.

Rebellion occupied their customary seventh and eighth slots, the #13 R-One lapping some six seconds slower than the #1 Porsche but ending comfortably clear of the #4 ByKolles machine.

ESM, Aston Martin take class honours

In the LMP2 class, it was the #31 Extreme Speed Motorsports Oreca that set the pace, Pipo Derani putting in what would transpire to be the class benchmark of 2m08.974s inside the first 15 minutes.

That was enough to beat the #26 G-Drive Oreca by a scant 0.055s, while the #36 Signatech Alpine was a further 0.080s back in third place.

The best time in the GTE-Pro class was also set in the early stages by the #97 Aston Martin, benefitting from an improved Balance of Performance this weekend, as Jonathan Adam clocked in a 2m19.296s.

Pedro Lamy made it a clean sweep of the two GTE classes by leading the way among the Am contingent in the #98 Aston with a 2m19.748s, which was enough to beat all the Pro entries bar the #97.

The works Ferrari 488s took second and third in Pro, the #51 heading the #71, ahead of the #66 and #67 Ford GTs in fourth and fifth places.

Practice times:

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Time	Gap
1	Mark Webber  Brendon Hartley  Timo Bernhard	Porsche Team	Porsche 919 Hybrid '16	1:58.012	1:58.012
2	Marc Lieb  Romain Dumas  Neel Jani	Porsche Team	Porsche 919 Hybrid '16	1:58.577	+0.565
3	Kamui Kobayashi  Mike Conway  Stéphane Sarrazin	Toyota Racing	Toyota TS050 HYBRID	1:59.429	+1.417
4	Andre Lotterer  Benoit Tréluyer  Marcel Fassler	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16	1:59.983	+1.971
5	Anthony Davidson  Kazuki Nakajima  Sébastien Buemi	Toyota Racing	Toyota TS050 HYBRID	2:00.053	+2.041
6	Loic Duval  Oliver Jarvis  Lucas di Grassi	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16	2:00.440	+2.428
7	Alexandre Imperatori  Matheo Tuscher  Dominik Kraihamer	Rebellion Racing	Rebellion R-One	2:04.157	+6.145
8	Nelson Piquet Jr.  Nick Heidfeld  Nicolas Prost	Rebellion Racing	Rebellion R-One	2:06.914	+8.902
9	Ryan Dalziel  Pipo Derani  Chris Cumming	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier JS P2	2:08.974	+10.962
10	Roman Rusinov  René Rast  Nathanael Berthon	G-Drive Racing	ORECA 05	2:09.029	+11.017
11	Nicolas Lapierre  Gustavo Menezes  Stéphane Richelmi	Signatech	Alpine A460	2:09.109	+11.097
12	James Rossiter  Oliver Webb  Simon Trummer	ByKOLLES Racing Team	CLM P1/01	2:09.442	+11.430
13	Nelson Panciatici  Ho-Pin Tung  David Cheng	Baxi DC Racing Alpine	Alpine A460	2:09.445	+11.433
14	Jonny Kane  Nick Leventis  Danny Watts	Strakka Racing	Gibson 015S	2:09.483	+11.471
15	Vitaly Petrov  Kirill Ladygin  Viktor Shaytar	SMP Racing	BR Engineering BR01	2:09.529	+11.517
16	Tor Graves  Will Stevens  James Jakes	Manor	ORECA 05	2:09.573	+11.561
17	Roberto Merhi  Matt Rao  Richard Bradley	Manor	ORECA 05	2:10.205	+12.193
18	Ricardo Gonzalez  Filipe Albuquerque  Bruno Senna	RGR Sport by Morand	Ligier JS P2	2:10.280	+12.268
19	Devi Markozov  Nicolas Minassian  Maurizio Mediani	SMP Racing	BR Engineering BR01	2:10.936	+12.924
20	Simon Dolan  Giedo van der Garde  Jake Dennis	G-Drive Racing	Gibson 015S	2:11.002	+12.990
21	Scott Sharp  Ed Brown  Johannes van Overbeek	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier JS P2	2:11.168	+13.156
22	Jonathan Adam  Richie Stanaway  Fernando Rees	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage V8	2:19.296	+21.284
23	Pedro Lamy  Paul Dalla Lana  Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage V8	2:19.748	+21.736
24	Gianmaria Bruni  James Calado	AF Corse	Ferrari 488 GTE	2:19.810	+21.798
25	Davide Rigon  Sam Bird	AF Corse	Ferrari 488 GTE	2:20.075	+22.063
26	Billy Johnson  Olivier Pla  Stefan Mücke	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Ford GT '16	2:20.115	+22.103
27	Andy Priaulx  Marino Franchitti  Harry Tincknell	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Ford GT '16	2:20.155	+22.143
28	Paolo Ruberti  Yutaka Yamagishi  Pierre Ragues	Larbre Competition	Chevrolet Corvette C7 GT3	2:20.156	+22.144
29	Richard Lietz  Michael Christensen	Dempsey-Proton Racing	Porsche 911 RSR	2:20.484	+22.472
30	Khaled Al Qubaisi  David Heinemeier Hansson Patrick Long	Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing	Porsche 911 RSR	2:20.603	+22.591
31	Emmanuel Collard  Rui Aguas  François Perrodo	AF Corse	Ferrari F458 Italia	2:20.810	+22.798
32	Nicki Thiim  Marco Sorensen  Darren Turner	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage V8	2:20.900	+22.888
33	Mike Wainwright  Adam Carroll  Ben Barker	Gulf Racing UK	Porsche 911 RSR	2:21.087	+23.075
34	Christian Ried  Joel Camathias  Wolf Henzler	KCMG	Porsche 911 RSR	2:21.115	+23.103