Practice report
WEC Nürburgring
Nurburgring WEC: Porsche fastest in delayed third practice
Mark Webber kept Porsche in command in a delayed third and final practice session for the WEC 6 Hours of Nurburgring, beating closest challenger Toyota by just under three tenths.
Jamie Klein
Edited: Jul 23, 2016, 11:57 AM
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The session began 45 minutes later than scheduled due to fog that prevented the medical helicopter from taking off, and was held in damp conditions when proceedings finally got underway.
But the track rapidly dried out, with the LMP1 runners quickly switching from wets to slicks – and by the halfway stage, they were setting times to rival Friday’s dry running.
In the end, Webber came within 0.005s of his benchmark from FP2 with a best time of 1m41.002s in the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid, beating the #5 Toyota TS050 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson by 0.291s.
Lucas di Grassi made it three different manufacturers in the top three as he set a time of 1m41.542s in the #8 Audi R18 e-tron quattro, in which Loic Duval suffered a late spin at Turn 2.
The sister #7 Audi was fourth fastest with Andre Lotterer at the wheel, the German setting a best effort 1m41.999s, ahead of Marc Lieb in the #2 Porsche and Mike Conway in the #6 Toyota.
The #13 Rebellion R-One remained the quickest of the LMP1 privateer entries, 5.899s off the pace.
In LMP2, Rene Rast grabbed the top spot for the G-Drive team in the #26 Oreca, making the most of the conditions late in the session to set a 1m50.260s.
That was enough to beat the #44 Manor Oreca of Antonio Pizzonia by 0.723s.
Signatech’s pair of Alpines were third and fourth quickest, the #35 of David Cheng beating the #36 of Nicolas Lapierre.
Ferrari took a convincing one-two in the GTE Pro class, with Gianmaria Bruni putting the #51 car top of the pile in the closing stages with a 1m57.145s.
Davide Rigon was 0.220s shy in the #71 car, while Harry Tincknell put the best of the Ford GTs in third place, just over half a second of the pace in class.
The GTE Am division was topped by the #88 Porsche of David Heinemeier Hansson, who posted a best effort of 2m00.360s.
FP3 results:
Pos#DriversCarClassLapsTimeGap 1 1 
Mark Webber
Timo Bernhard
Brendon Hartley Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 24 1'41.002 2 5 
Anthony Davidson
Kazuki Nakajima
Sébastien Buemi Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 28 1'41.293 0.291 3 8 
Lucas di Grassi
Loic Duval
Oliver Jarvis Audi R18 LMP1 29 1'41.542 0.540 4 7 Andre Lotterer
Marcel Fassler Audi R18 LMP1 29 1'41.999 0.997 5 2 Romain Dumas
Neel Jani
Marc Lieb Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 24 1'42.239 1.237 6 6 Stéphane Sarrazin
Kamui Kobayashi
Mike Conway Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 30 1'42.309 1.307 7 13 Alexandre Imperatori
Dominik Kraihamer
Matheo Tuscher Rebellion R-One LMP1 23 1'46.901 5.899 8 12 Nick Heidfeld
Nicolas Prost
Mathias Beche Rebellion R-One LMP1 26 1'47.323 6.321 9 4 Simon Trummer
Oliver Webb
Pierre Kaffer CLM P1/01 LMP1 25 1'47.632 6.630 10 26 
Roman Rusinov
René Rast
Alex Brundle Oreca 05 LMP2 27 1'50.260 9.258 11 44 Antonio Pizzonia
Matthew Howson
Tor Graves Oreca 05 LMP2 24 1'50.983 9.981 12 35 Nelson Panciatici
Ho-Pin Tung
David Cheng Alpine A460 LMP2 26 1'51.246 10.244 13 36 Nicolas Lapierre
Gustavo Menezes
Stéphane Richelmi Alpine A460 LMP2 28 1'51.387 10.385 14 45 
Roberto Merhi
Richard Bradley
Matthew Rao Oreca 05 LMP2 24 1'51.597 10.595 15 37 Vitaly Petrov
Viktor Shaytar
Kirill Ladygin BR01 LMP2 22 1'51.968 10.966 16 43 Bruno Senna
Ricardo Gonzalez
Filipe Albuquerque Ligier JS P2 LMP2 25 1'52.088 11.086 17 30 Scott Sharp
Ed Brown
Johannes van Overbeek Ligier JS P2 LMP2 22 1'52.298 11.296 18 42 Nick Leventis
Jonny Kane
Lewis Williamson Gibson 015S LMP2 27 1'52.537 11.535 19 27 
Maurizio Mediani
David Markozov
Nicolas Minassian BR01 LMP2 27 1'52.700 11.698 20 31 Pipo Derani
Ryan Dalziel
Chris Cumming Ligier JS P2 LMP2 27 1'53.141 12.139 21 51 Gianmaria Bruni
James Calado Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE PRO 23 1'57.145 16.143 22 71 Sam Bird
Davide Rigon Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE PRO 23 1'57.365 16.363 23 67 Harry Tincknell
Andy Priaulx
Marino Franchitti Ford GT LMGTE PRO 27 1'57.530 16.528 24 97 Darren Turner
Richie Stanaway Aston Martin Vantage V8 LMGTE PRO 25 1'58.134 17.132 25 77 Richard Lietz
Michael Christensen Porsche 911 RSR (2016) LMGTE PRO 20 1'58.371 17.369 26 95 Marco Sorensen
Nicki Thiim Aston Martin Vantage V8 LMGTE PRO 27 1'58.581 17.579 27 66 Stefan Mücke
Olivier Pla Ford GT LMGTE PRO 25 1'58.831 17.829 28 88 David Heinemeier Hansson
Patrick Long
Khaled Al Qubaisi Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 23 2'00.360 19.358 29 83 François Perrodo
Emmanuel Collard
Rui Aguas Ferrari F458 Italia LMGTE AM 25 2'00.926 19.924 30 78 Christian Ried
Wolf Henzler
Joel Camathias Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 27 2'00.996 19.994 31 50 Paolo Ruberti
Pierre Ragues
Yutaka Yamagishi Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06 LMGTE AM 22 2'01.057 20.055 32 98 Pedro Lamy
Paul Dalla Lana
Mathias Lauda Aston Martin Vantage V8 LMGTE AM 26 2'01.633 20.631 33 86 Michael Wainwright
Adam Carroll
Ben Barker Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 22 2'02.005 21.003
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