A damp-but-drying track meant times fell quickly in the opening part of the hour-long session, and it was the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid that led the way early on in the hands of Anthony Davidson.

As conditions improved, Porsche took over at the top of the times as Nick Tandy went quickest in the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid on a 1m40.243s, a time Neel Jani improved on fractionally with a 1m40.223s.

But in the final 10 minutes, Davidson put Toyota back on top with a 1m39.476s in the #8 car, which left the Japanese marque 0.747s up on Jani's Porsche.

Brendon Hartley was a further 0.150s back in third place in the sister #2 Porsche, ahead of the second of the Toyotas, which had an eventful session.

A data issue left the #7 machine in the garage for the first half-hour, and Jose Maria Lopez attracted the attention of the stewards when he had a scrape with Paul Dalla Lana's Aston Martin at Luffield late on as he tried to pass the #98 Vantage around the outside.

The Argentine set the car's best time, a 1m40.656s, to go 1.180s slower than Davidson's benchmark, and was reported to the stewards for dangerous driving.

Setting the pace in the LMP2 class was the TDS Racing Oreca of Matthieu Vaxiviere, who set a 1m44.105s.

That left the #28 car four tenths up on the other TDS-run car, the #26 G-Drive machine of Roman Rusinov, while third was the best of the JOTA-run Orecas, the #38 DC Racing machine.

The ByKolles ENSO CLM P1/01 was slower than all bar one of the LMP2 contingent, as Oliver Webb set the #4 car's best time of 1m46.515s.

Ford leads the way in GTE

Andy Priaulx put Ford on top in the GTE Pro battle, with a best time of 1m56.233s in the quicker of the two Ganassi-run cars - four tenths up on squadmate Stefan Mucke in the second Ford GT.

Ferrari was third and fourth in class, James Calado giving the Scuderia its best time of 1m57.268s in the #51 488 GTE.

The best of the GTE Am cars, the #98 Aston Martin, was also the fifth-best GTE car overall, thanks to a 1m58.691s set by Pedro Lamy before the car's incident with the #7 Toyota.

Practice results:

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Time	Gap
1	8	Anthony Davidson Kazuki Nakajima Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	27	1'39.476
2	1	Andre Lotterer Neel Jani Nick Tandy	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	29	1'40.223	0.747
3	2	Timo Bernhard Brendon Hartley Earl Bamber	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	26	1'40.373	0.897
4	7	Kamui Kobayashi Mike Conway Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	20	1'40.656	1.180
5	28	François Perrodo Emmanuel Collard Matthieu Vaxivière	Oreca 07	LMP2	26	1'44.105	4.629
6	26	Roman Rusinov Pierre Thiriet Alex Lynn	Oreca 07	LMP2	27	1'44.485	5.009
7	38	Oliver Jarvis Ho-Pin Tung Thomas Laurent	Oreca 07	LMP2	29	1'45.344	5.868
8	25	Vitaly Petrov Simon Trummer Roberto Gonzalez	Oreca 07	LMP2	24	1'45.848	6.372
9	36	Nicolas Lapierre Gustavo Menezes Matt Rao	Alpine A470	LMP2	26	1'45.981	6.505
10	31	Bruno Senna Julien Canal Nicolas Prost	Oreca 07	LMP2	26	1'46.143	6.667
11	24	Jean-Eric Vergne Jonathan Hirschi Tor Graves	Oreca 07	LMP2	27	1'46.363	6.887
12	13	Nelson Piquet Jr. David Heinemeier Hansson Mathias Beche	Oreca 07	LMP2	22	1'46.366	6.890
13	4	Oliver Webb Dominik Kraihamer James Rossiter	ENSO CLM P1/01	LMP1	21	1'46.515	7.039
14	37	David Cheng Tristan Gommendy Alex Brundle	Oreca 07	LMP2	21	1'47.051	7.575
15	67	Pipo Derani Harry Tincknell Andy Priaulx	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	24	1'56.233	16.757
16	66	Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla Billy Johnson	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	20	1'56.628	17.152
17	51	James Calado Alessandro Pier Guidi	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	22	1'57.268	17.792
18	71	Sam Bird Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	20	1'57.892	18.416
19	98	Pedro Lamy Paul Dalla Lana Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE AM	22	1'58.691	19.215
20	61	Matt Griffin Mok Weng Sun Keita Sawa	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	26	1'59.083	19.607
21	91	Richard Lietz Frédéric Makowiecki	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	27	1'59.540	20.064
22	54	Francesco Castellacci Miguel Molina Thomas Flohr	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	24	1'59.544	20.068
23	97	Darren Turner Jonathan Adam Daniel Serra	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE PRO	26	1'59.591	20.115
24	95	Marco Sorensen Nicki Thiim Richie Stanaway	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE PRO	27	1'59.597	20.121
25	92	Michael Christensen Kevin Estre	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	19	1'59.685	20.209
26	77	Christian Ried Matteo Cairoli Marvin Dienst	Porsche 911 RSR (991)	LMGTE AM	25	1'59.840	20.364
27	86	Michael Wainwright Ben Barker Nick Foster	Porsche 911 RSR (991)	LMGTE AM	23	2'02.353	22.877