Fuji WEC: Toyota extends advantage amid more delays
Toyota extended its advantage over its privateer LMP1 opposition in the second practice session for the WEC 6 Hours of Fuji, which was again marred by two stoppages.
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 |
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About this article
| Series | WEC |
| Event | Fuji |
| Author | Jamie Klein |
