Fuji WEC: Toyota extends advantage amid more delays

As in first practice, Friday afternoon's running was red-flagged for kerb damage at Turn 15, with around 50 minutes of track time lost in two separate stoppages. The session was extended, but only by 10 minutes.

It was the #8 car that was the quicker of the two Toyotas again, as Fernando Alonso immediately beat Sebastien Buemi's FP1 benchmark with a 1m23.973s.

That was enough to beat Jose Maria Lopez in the sister #7 machine by over a second, with both the Argentine and Alonso posting their respective cars' best times in the first six minutes of the session before the first red flag.

Rebellion Racing was the quickest of the non-hybrid squads, with the Silverstone race-winning #3 R-13-Gibson leading the charge in the hands of Thomas Laurent with a time 1.724s off the pace of Alonso.

Jenson Button was fourth-fastest in the #11 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1-AER, just a tenth behind, followed by the #1 Rebellion of Andre Lotterer and the second of the SMP BR1s, the #17 of Matevos Isaakyan which slowly limped back to the pits in the dying stages of the session.

ByKolles returnee Tom Dillmann and DragonSpeed's Ben Hanley completed the LMP1 order.

LMP2 was topped by Signatech Alpine, with Andre Negrao setting the best time in class of 1m30.893s in the #36 Oreca.

That was enough to beat the better of the Jota Sport-run Jackie Chan DC Orecas, the #38 of Ho-Pin Tung, by four tenths, while teammate Weiron Tan was third fastest in the #37 car.

Aston Martin topped the GTE Pro times courtesy of a late flyer from Nicki Thiim in the #95 Vantage GTE.

Thiim set a 1m37.659s with less than 10 minutes remaining to depose Ford driver Harry Tincknell by a little under two tenths.

Ferrari made it three different makes in the top three in class, Davide Rigon leading its charge in the #71 488 GTE Evo, ahead of the two Porsche 911 RSRs.

BMW continued to struggle, its two MTEK-run M8 GTEs ending up eighth and 10th in class.

Porsche again topped the times in GTE Am, with Matteo Cairoli posting the class benchmark of 1m38.989s in the #88 Dempsey-Proton 911 RSR.

Second practice results:

Pos.	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	8	Fernando Alonso Kazuki Nakajima Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	1'23.973
2	7	Kamui Kobayashi Mike Conway Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	1'25.068	1.095
3	3	Mathias Beche Thomas Laurent Gustavo Menezes	Rebellion R13	LMP1	1'25.697	1.724
4	11	Jenson Button Vitaly Petrov Mikhail Aleshin	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	1'25.801	1.828
5	1	Andre Lotterer Bruno Senna Neel Jani	Rebellion R13	LMP1	1'25.931	1.958
6	17	Stéphane Sarrazin Matevos Isaakyan Egor Orudzhev	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	1'27.664	3.691
7	4	Oliver Webb Tom Dillmann James Rossiter	ENSO CLM P1/01	LMP1	1'28.209	4.236
8	10	Ben Hanley James Allen	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	1'28.914	4.941
9	36	Nicolas Lapierre Pierre Thiriet Andre Negrao	Alpine A470	LMP2	1'30.410	6.437
10	38	Ho-Pin Tung Stéphane Richelmi Gabriel Aubry	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'30.842	6.869
11	37	Nabil Jeffri Weiron Tan Jazeman Jaafar	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'30.990	7.017
12	28	Jean-Eric Vergne François Perrodo Matthieu Vaxiviere	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'31.040	7.067
13	29	Giedo van der Garde Nyck de Vries Frits van Eerd	Dallara P217	LMP2	1'31.259	7.286
14	31	Anthony Davidson Pastor Maldonado Roberto Gonzalez	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'31.995	8.022
15	50	Romano Ricci Erwin Creed Keiko lhara	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	1'32.736	8.763
16	95	Nicki Thiim Marco Sorensen	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	1'37.659	13.686
17	67	Harry Tincknell Andy Priaulx	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	1'37.821	13.848
18	71	Sam Bird Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	1'38.041	14.068
19	91	Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	1'38.053	14.080
20	92	Michael Christensen Kevin Estre	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	1'38.081	14.108
21	66	Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	1'38.179	14.206
22	51	James Calado Alessandro Pier Guidi	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	1'38.248	14.275
23	81	Nick Catsburg Martin Tomczyk	BMW M8 GTE	LMGTE PRO	1'38.388	14.415
24	97	Maxime Martin Alex Lynn	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	1'38.477	14.504
25	82	Antonio Felix da Costa Tom Blomqvist	BMW M8 GTE	LMGTE PRO	1'38.504	14.531
26	88	Matteo Cairoli Giorgio Roda Satoshi Hoshino	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	1'38.989	15.016
27	77	Christian Ried Matt Campbell Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	1'39.152	15.179
28	61	Matthew Griffin Mok Weng Sun Keita Sawa	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	1'39.295	15.322
29	54	Giancarlo Fisichella Francesco Castellacci Thomas Flohr	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	1'39.410	15.437
30	70	Olivier Beretta Eddie Cheever III Motoaki Ishikawa	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	1'39.559	15.586
31	56	Jörg Bergmeister Patrick Lindsey Egidio Perfetti	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	1'39.712	15.739
32	86	Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Thomas Preining	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	1'39.930	15.957
33	90	Jonathan Adam Salih Yoluc Charles Eastwood	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE AM	1'40.181	16.208
34	98	Pedro Lamy Paul Dalla Lana Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE AM	1'40.429	16.456