Sebring WEC: Lopez keeps #7 Toyota ahead in FP3

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