Porsche tops Day 2 morning session, Toyota causes red flag
Porsche continued its domination of the World Endurance Championship Prologue test at Paul Ricard on Saturday morning, as Toyota brought out the red flags.
Photo by: Adrenal Media
Toyota had led the way for most of the four-hour morning session by virtue of Stephane Sarrazin's early benchmark of 1m38.273s in the #6 TS050 Hybrid.
However, with around 40 minutes remaining, Kamui Kobayashi ground to a halt with a technical problem at Turn 4, bringing out the red flags, and once the session resumed it was Brendon Hartley who put the #1 Porsche on top in the dying stages.
The New Zealander set a 1m37.886s to beat Toyota by 0.387s, although this effort was still some four tenths slower than what the 919 Hybrid had achieved on Day 1 in the hands of Neel Jani.
Audi was third quickest with the #7 entry piloted by Marcel Fassler, who was 1.677s off the pace but again comfortably clear of the two Rebellion R-Ones in fourth and fifth.
Sixth fastest overall was the top LMP2 entry - Gustavo Menezes set the pace in the #36 Signatech Alpine early on with a 1m46.974s and was never headed.
The #26 G-Drive Oreca was second, seven tenths back, ahead of the #35 Signatech entry in third.
Ferrari was once again the team to beat in the GTE Pro class, with Sam Bird putting the #71 entry on top with a best time of 1m58.083 to head the sister #51 488 machine by three tenths.
Bird, however, was involved in a scrape with the Manor of Tor Graves, both cars sustaining minor damage but getting back out on the circuit later on.
Third-fastest among the GTE contingent was the top GTE Am car, the #86 Gulf Racing Porsche. Meanwhile, Paul Dalla Lana's #98 Aston suffered a puncture, bringing out the full course yellows while the debris was cleared.
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