Toyota take the honours in FP1

Toyota Gazoo Racing recorded the fastest time in the first free practice session of the season, with Sébastien Buemi’s early best of 1:40.104 proving unassailable over the remainder of the 90 minutes. Second quickest was Brendon Hartley for Porsche, 0.7 seconds further back. Mike Conway was third in the #7 Toyota TS050 with a 1:40.960.

Quickest in LMP2 was Matthias Beche for the #13 Vaillante Rebellion Oreca, who edged out Mathieu Vaxiviere in the #28 TDS Racing car by two tenths of a second. Alex Brundle was third quickest for Jackie Chan DC Racing, with best of the P2 runners only around five seconds slower than the LMP1 cars.

In GTE Pro, Richie Stanaway in the #95 Aston Martin pipped the two Ford GTs to top spot with a best lap of 1:59.110. Billy Johnson was second fastest in the #66, while Andy Priauxl recovered the #67 after stopping out on track to finish third best. Pedro Lamy was the fastest man in GTE Am, posting a time that would have put him second overall in GTE Pro for the #98 Aston Martin Racing machine.

Images (c) WEC-Magazin / Walter Schruff