Toyota ends final WEC Prologue test session fastest

Lapierre, who re-joins Toyota for this year’s Spa and Le Mans races, lapped the Italian track in 1m30.547s at the very start of the final three-hour session on board the #8 TS050 Hybrid.

That was some eight tenths faster than Mike Conway had managed on Saturday, and nearly a full second ahead of the #7 Toyota’s best time of Sunday afternoon – a 1m31.477s set by Kamui Kobayashi with a little over 45 minutes left.

The Japanese driver’s time came just before the session was red-flagged due to Matt Rao going off and hitting the barriers at the first Lesmo in the #36 Signatech Alpine during a late rain shower.

After a brief delay, the session was resumed, but the wet track meant no further improvements were made.

Porsche therefore ended up third and fourth in the final test session of the Prologue, with Nick Tandy putting the #1 919 Hybrid ahead of the sister #2 car with an early lap of 1m31.844s.

The #2 crew’s best time was a 1m32.066s, set by 2015 WEC champion Timo Bernhard.

LMP2 was topped by the #38 JOTA Sport run-DC Racing Oreca of Ho-Pin Tung, who set a 1m36.448s – four tenths shy of Matthieu Vaxiviere’s best effort in the #28 TDS car from earlier in the day.

Second was the #35 Signatech Alpine car of Nelson Panciatici, a little over a tenth behind, while Vitaly Petrov put the sole #24 Manor Oreca third in class, a further 0.031s back.

Ford beats Porsche in GTE

Ford ended Porsche’s domination of the GTE Pro category, with the pair of Ganassi-run GTs making it a class one-two – albeit failing to better the German manufacturer’s benchmark from Saturday.

Harry Tincknell set the pace on Sunday afternoon with a best effort of 1m47.530s in the #67 car, while Olivier Pla put the #66 entry second with a time only 0.042s slower.

The two mid-engined works 911 RSRs were next, the #91 heading the #92, while James Calado’s #51 car headed up the Ferrari contingent in fifth.

Clearwater Racing set the quickest time in the GTE Am class, with Keita Sawa leading the way with a 1m50.271s in the #61 Ferrari 488 GTE.