Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

Australia

Le Mans test day: Alonso stays on top in afternoon

Toyota driver Fernando Alonso topped the times at the official Le Mans 24 Hours test day on his first experience of the track. 

#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso, Jose Maria Lopez, Anthony Davidson

#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso, Jose Maria Lopez, Anthony Davidson

JEP / Motorsport Images

#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso, Jose Maria Lopez, Anthony Davidson
#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Fernando Alonso
#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso, Jose Maria Lopez, Anthony Davidson
#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria Lopez, Fernando Alonso, Anthony Davidson
#11 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1: Mikhail Aleshin, Vitaly Petrov, Jenson Button
#11 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1: Mikhail Aleshin, Vitaly Petrov, Jenson Button
#31 Dragonspeed Oreca 07: Roberto Gonzalez, Pastor Maldonado, Nathanael Berthon
#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Fernando Alonso
#32 United Autosports Ligier JSP217 Gibson: Juan Pablo Montoya
#32 United Autosports Ligier JSP217 Gibson: Juan Pablo Montoya
#11 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1: Jenson Button
#29 Racing Team Nederland Dallara P217: Frits van Eerd, Giedo van der Garde, Jan Lammers
#11 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1: Jenson Button
#11 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1: Mikhail Aleshin, Vitaly Petrov, Jenson Button
#51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE EVO: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Daniel Serra
#91 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR: Richard Lietz, Gianmaria Bruni, Frédéric Makowiecki

The two-time Formula 1 world champion ended up fastest in both sessions in the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid he will race in the Le Mans 24 Hours on June 16/17. 

Alonso improved on his 3m21.468s morning best in the afternoon with a 3m19.066s to leapfrog back ahead of teammate Kamui Kobayashi by almost a second. 

Alonso said: "It was a lot of fun out there - the track is beautiful and fits perfectly with the LMP1s. It was enjoyable for me and we got the info we needed from the test."

The two Toyotas were subsequently split by the best of the LMP1 privateers, the #3 Rebellion R-13-Gibson driven Mathias Beche. 

The Swiss driver's 3m19.780s left him only seventh tenths down on Alonso in the final classification.

Andre Lotterer jumped to fourth with a 3m21.334s in the second of the Rebellions in the final 15 minutes.

That leapfrogged him ahead of the two SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1-AERs, which took fifth and sixth in the hands of Vitaly Petrov and Stephane Sarrazin respectively. 

DragonSpeed moved to the top of the LMP2 times late in the afternoon with a 3m27.228s from Nathanael Berthon aboard its Oreca-Gibson 07. 

That put him just two hundredths ahead of the IDEC Sport Oreca driven by Paul-Loup Chatin.

The G-Drive Oreca that had topped the class in the morning ended up third with a 3m28.394s from Jean-Eric Vergne. 

Porsche jumped ahead of Ford in the GTE Pro times in the afternoon session. 

Patrick Pilet ended up fastest in the #91 CORE autosport-run 911 RSR with a 3m52.647s, which put him less than a tenth up on Gianmaria Bruni in the best of the WEC entries from Porsche.  

Andy Priaulx's morning best of 3m53.008s for the British-based Ganassi Ford squad left him third ahead of teammate Olivier Pla, who improved to 3m53.052s in the afternoon. 

The four Fords and Porsche's pair of full-season WEC entries locked out the top six positions in the class. 

Best of the rest was BMW driver Nicky Catsburg with a 3m53.946s aboard his MTEK-run M8 GTE. 

The Dempsey-Proton Porsche squad moved to the top of the GTE Am times right at the end of the afternoon session, which was brought to a premature end a couple of minutes early with the fourth red flag of the day. 

Julien Andlauer set a 3m55.970s in the #71 911 RSR to knock Giancarlo Fisichella in the Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE off the top of the times. 

LMP1 results:

Pos.No.CarDriversTime
1 8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid

 Sebastien Buemi

 Kazuki Nakajima

 Fernando Alonso

 Jose Maria Lopez

 Anthony Davidson

3m19.066s
2 3 Rebellion R-13-Gibson

 Thomas Laurent

 Mathias Beche

 Gustavo Menezes

3m19.680s
3 7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid

 Mike Conway

 Kamui Kobayashi

 Fernando Alonso

 Jose Maria Lopez

 Anthony Davidson

3m20.008s
4 1 Rebellion R-13-Gibson

 Andre Lotterer

 Neel Jani

 Bruno Senna

3m21.344s
5 11 BR Engineering BR1-AER

 Vitaly Petrov

 Mikhail Aleshin

 Jenson Button

3m21.603s
6 17 BR Engineering BR1-AER

 Stephane Sarrazin

 Egor Orudzhev

 Matevos Isaakyan

3m21.761s
7 4 ENSO CLM P1/01-Nissan

 Tom Dilllmann

 Oliver Webb

 Dominik Kraihamer

3m23.644s
8 10 BR Engineering BR1-Gibson

 Henrik Hedman

 Ben Hanley

 Renger van der Zande

3m26.951s
9 6 Ginetta G60-LT-P1-Mecachrome

 Oliver Rowland

 Alex Brundle

 Oliver Turvey

3m27.748s
10 5 Ginetta G60-LT-P1-Mecachrome

 Charlie Robertson

 Mike Simpson

 Leo Roussel

3m28.180s

Be part of Motorsport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Le Mans test day: Alonso tops morning session for Toyota
Next article Button admits he found Le Mans “disconcerting” at first

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

Australia