Practice report
WEC Sebring
Sebring WEC: Lopez keeps #7 Toyota ahead in FP3
Toyota driver Jose Maria Lopez set the fastest time of the weekend so far in final practice for the Sebring 1000 Miles FIA World Endurance Championship round.
Jamie Klein
Edited: Mar 14, 2019, 11:56 PM
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After taking over the #7 TS050 Hybrid from Mike Conway, Lopez posted a best time of 1m41.448s in the 60-minute session, eclipsing his own best time set in Wednesday evening's second practice.
It remains however three tenths shy of Conway's unofficial record set last weekend in testing.
Fernando Alonso set the best time in the #8 Toyota, a 1m42.101s - 0.653s adrift of Lopez - as both Toyotas stretched their advantage over the non-hybrid LMP1 runners.
Best of the rest was DragonSpeed's Gibson-powered BR Engineering BR1 of Renger van der Zande, albeit the Dutchman's best time was 2.7s off the pace.
Rebellion Racing's two R13-Gibsons were fourth and fifth, with Neel Jani in the #1 managing a time a little more than a tenth quicker than Gustavo Menezes in the #3.
Both SMP Racing BR1s were some five seconds slower than the Toyotas, with Vitaly Petrov's best lap putting the #11 car ahead of the #17 machine of Egor Orudzhev.
Gabriel Aubry, who is on double WEC/IMSA duty this weekend at Sebring, recorded the best time in the LMP2 class in the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca.
The Frenchman's late 1m48.353s effort was enough to eclipse Nicolas Lapierre in the #36 Signatech Alpine Oreca by 0.141s.
Racing Team Nederland's Dallara P217 was third-fastest in the hands of Formula 2 racer Nyck de Vries.
GTE Pro was led by Ford courtesy of a 1m57.730s effort from Andy Priaulx in the #67 car, slightly quicker than the class benchmark from Wednesday evening.
Porsche's pair of 911 RSRs filled the next two spots, Michael Christensen in the #92 narrowly shading Gianmaria Bruni in the #91 car, while Alessandro Pier Guidi put the best of the Ferrari 488 GTEs in fourth.
Aston Martin, which topped FP2, propped up the GTE Pro times in 10th and 11th, behind the sole Corvette Racing C7.R in ninth place.
The pacesetter in GTE Am and fifth-quickest of the GTE cars generally was Matt Campbell in the #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche, the Australian going seven tenths clear of the field.
Paul Dalla Lana prompted a full-course yellow period when he spun the #98 Aston Martin Vantage at Turn 17 a little over half an hour into the session and hit the tyre barriers backwards.
Practice times:
Pos. # Drivers Car Class Time Gap 1 7 
Kamui Kobayashi
Mike Conway
Jose Maria Lopez Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'41.448 2 8 
Fernando Alonso
Kazuki Nakajima
Sébastien Buemi Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'42.101 0.653 3 10 
Henrik Hedman
Renger van der Zande
Ben Hanley BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'44.156 2.708 4 1 
Bruno Senna
Neel Jani
Mathias Beche Rebellion R13 LMP1 1'44.554 3.106 5 3 
Nathanael Berthon
Thomas Laurent
Gustavo Menezes Rebellion R13 LMP1 1'44.707 3.259 6 11 
Vitaly Petrov
Brendon Hartley
Mikhail Aleshin BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'46.399 4.951 7 17 
Sergey Sirotkin
Stéphane Sarrazin
Egor Orudzhev BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'46.775 5.327 8 38 
Ho-Pin Tung
Stéphane Richelmi
Gabriel Aubry Oreca 07 LMP2 1'48.353 6.905 9 36 Nicolas Lapierre
Pierre Thiriet
Andre Negrao Alpine A470 LMP2 1'48.494 7.046 10 29 
Giedo van der Garde
Nyck de Vries
Frits van Eerd Dallara P217 LMP2 1'49.028 7.580 11 31 
Anthony Davidson
Pastor Maldonado
Roberto Gonzalez Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.061 7.613 12 28 Loic Duval
François Perrodo
Matthieu Vaxiviere Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.333 7.885 13 37 Will Stevens
David Heinemeier Hansson
Jordan King Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.353 7.905 14 50 
Gunnar Jeannette
Romano Ricci
Erwin Creed Ligier JSP 217 LMP2 1'50.777 9.329 15 67 Harry Tincknell
Jonathan Bomarito
Andy Priaulx Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'57.730 16.282 16 92 
Michael Christensen
Kevin Estre Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'58.052 16.604 17 91 
Gianmaria Bruni
Richard Lietz Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'58.083 16.635 18 51 James Calado
Alessandro Pier Guidi
Daniel Serra Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 1'58.365 16.917 19 77 
Christian Ried
Matthew Campbell
Julien Andlauer Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 1'58.554 17.106 20 66 
Stefan Mücke
Olivier Pla
Billy Johnson Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'58.595 17.147 21 71 Sam Bird
Davide Rigon
Miguel Molina Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 1'58.788 17.340 22 81 Nick Catsburg
Martin Tomczyk
Alexander Sims BMW M8 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'58.864 17.416 23 82 
Antonio Felix da Costa
Bruno Spengler
Augusto Farfus BMW M8 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'59.095 17.647 24 63 
Jan Magnussen
Antonio Garcia
Mike Rockenfeller Chevrolet Corvette C7R LMGTE PRO 1'59.130 17.682 25 88 
Gianluca Roda
Matteo Cairoli
Giorgio Roda Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 1'59.260 17.812 26 56 
Jörg Bergmeister
Patrick Lindsey
Egidio Perfetti Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 1'59.605 18.157 27 95 
Marco Sorensen
Nicki Thiim
Darren Turner Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE PRO 1'59.609 18.161 28 97 
Maxime Martin
Alex Lynn Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE PRO 1'59.661 18.213 29 54 
Giancarlo Fisichella
Francesco Castellacci
Thomas Flohr Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 1'59.699 18.251 30 90 Jonathan Adam
Salih Yoluc
Charles Eastwood Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 1'59.934 18.486 31 70 
Olivier Beretta
Eddie Cheever III
Motoaki Ishikawa Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'00.129 18.681 32 86 
Michael Wainwright
Benjamin Barker
Thomas Preining Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 2'00.429 18.981 33 61 
Matthew Griffin
Matteo Cressoni
Luis Perez Companc Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'00.579 19.131 34 98 
Pedro Lamy
Paul Dalla Lana
Mathias Lauda Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 2'01.607 20.159
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