Practice report
WEC Silverstone
Silverstone WEC: Hartley flyer displays Porsche’s true pace
Porsche’s Brendon Hartley dipped under last year’s pole time in second practice for the Silverstone WEC opener, but it wasn’t all good news for the German marque as the sister car suffered a brief off.
Charles Bradley
Edited: Apr 16, 2016, 2:20 AM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Despite a few drops of rain beforehand, the session started dry with the track soon inundated with cars as the skies were threatening with dark rain clouds.
Hartley was quickly into his groove, a 1m39.655s already under the 2015 pole time. His co-driver Mark Webber set a faster sector-three time later in the session but didn’t improve the time overall.
In the #2 car, Romain Dumas was warned about abusing track limits at Copse, recording the second-quickest time of 1m41.344s, some 1.6s off the Kiwi Hartley’s pace.
Then Marc Lieb suffered an off in the #2 car at Luffield, beaching the car in the gravel, which brought out a full course yellow.
In the battle for best of the rest, Loic Duval set the fastest first sector overall for Audi, on his way to a 1m41.454s, 1.799s off the pace – but only a tenth off the #2 Porsche.
That lap pushed back the Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi to fourth on 1m41.915s.
A rain shower five minutes before the end curtailed the quick times, with the Audi-Toyota symmetry repeated in positions five and six by the sister #7 Audi and #5 Toyota.
Rebellion led the way in the non-hybrid subclass over the ByKolles CLM.
Multi-team duel in LMP2
In LMP2, Pipo Dirani set the early pace for ESM on a 1m50.194s, already quicker than the class’s fastest morning time on his first run.
Gustavo Menezes took the top spot from him with a lap of 1m49.757s in the Signatech Alpine, but a flurry of late times in the final 30 minutes changed everything.
After ex-F1 racer Roberto Merhi went P2 with 1m49.994s for sportscar newcomers Manor, James Jakes then hit the front with a 1m49.696s in the sister car.
But Strakka Racing had the last laugh, as Jonny Kane set 1m49.632s to top the class in his Nissan-powered Gibson.
Ferrari rules the roost in GTE Pro
In GTE Pro, there was battle royal between the two AF Corse Ferrari 488s of Davide Rigon/Sam Bird and Gianmaria Bruni/James Calado.
Rigon set the ball rolling with a time of 2m01.917s, which was then topped by Bruni on 2m01.494s despite a warning for track limits.
Rigon closed the gap with 2m01.569s, and then took P1 on 2m01.069s.
Calado fought back with a 2m00.107s – almost a second clear of the sister car, before Rigon improved to a 2m00.313s, two tenths off, with Bird trimming off a few fractions on a 2m00.306s.
In GTE Am, the Gulf Racing Porsche led the way – although it suffered an off late in the session.
Silverstone FP2 times
PosDriverCarTimeGap 1 
Mark Webber
Brendon Hartley
Timo Bernhard Porsche 919 Hybrid '16 1:39.655 1:39.655 2 Marc Lieb
Romain Dumas
Neel Jani Porsche 919 Hybrid '16 1:41.344 +1.689 3 Loic Duval
Oliver Jarvis
Lucas di Grassi Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16 1:41.454 +1.799 4 
Kamui Kobayashi
Mike Conway
Stéphane Sarrazin Toyota TS050 HYBRID 1:41.523 +1.868 5 Andre Lotterer
Benoit Tréluyer
Marcel Fassler Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16 1:41.678 +2.023 6 Anthony Davidson
Kazuki Nakajima
Sébastien Buemi Toyota TS050 HYBRID 1:42.963 +3.308 7 Alexandre Imperatori
Mathéo Tuscher
Dominik Kraihamer Rebellion R-One 1:46.428 +6.773 8 Nelson Piquet Jr.
Nick Heidfeld
Nicolas Prost Rebellion R-One 1:47.685 +8.030 9 James Rossiter
Oliver Webb
Simon Trummer CLM P1/01 1:48.590 +8.935 10 Jonny Kane
Nick Leventis
Danny Watts Gibson 015S 1:49.632 +9.977 11 
Tor Graves
Will Stevens
James Jakes ORECA 05 1:49.696 +10.041 12 Nicolas Lapierre
Gustavo Menezes
Stéphane Richelmi Alpine A460 1:49.757 +10.102 13 
Roberto Merhi
Matt Rao
Richard Bradley ORECA 05 1:49.994 +10.339 14 Ryan Dalziel
Pipo Derani
Chris Cumming Ligier JS P2 1:50.026 +10.371 15 
Roman Rusinov
René Rast
Nathanael Berthon ORECA 05 1:50.268 +10.613 16 
Ricardo Gonzalez
Filipe Albuquerque
Bruno Senna Ligier JS P2 1:50.712 +11.057 17 Vitaly Petrov
Kirill Ladygin
Viktor Shaytar BR Engineering BR01 1:51.946 +12.291 18 Scott Sharp
Ed Brown
Johannes van Overbeek Ligier JS P2 1:52.082 +12.427 19 Nelson Panciatici
Ho-Pin Tung
David Cheng Alpine A460 1:52.305 +12.650 20 Nicolas Minassian
Maurizio Mediani BR Engineering BR01 1:52.680 +13.025 21 Gianmaria Bruni
James Calado Ferrari 488 GTE 2:00.107 +20.452 22 Davide Rigon
Sam Bird Ferrari 488 GTE 2:00.306 +20.651 23 Richard Lietz
Michael E. Christensen Porsche 911 RSR 2:01.314 +21.659 24 Mike Wainwright
Adam Carroll
Ben Barker Porsche 911 RSR 2:02.081 +22.426 25 Richie Stanaway
Fernando Rees Aston Martin Vantage V8 2:02.525 +22.870 26 Billy Johnson
Olivier Pla
Stefan Mücke Ford GT '16 2:02.775 +23.120 27 Pedro Lamy
Paul Dalla Lana
Mathias Lauda Aston Martin Vantage V8 2:02.788 +23.133 28 Paolo Ruberti
Yutaka Yamagishi
Pierre Ragues Chevrolet Corvette C7 GT3 2:02.911 +23.256 29 
Khaled Al Qubaisi
David Heinemeier Hansson
Klaus Bachler Porsche 911 RSR 2:03.005 +23.350 30 Andy Priaulx
Marino Franchitti
Harry Tincknell Ford GT '16 2:03.075 +23.420 31 Emmanuel Collard
Rui Aguas
François Perrodo Ferrari F458 Italia 2:03.229 +23.574 32 Nicki Thiim
Marco Sørensen
Darren Turner Aston Martin Vantage V8 2:03.253 +23.598 33 Christian Ried
Joël Camathias
Wolf Henzler Porsche 911 RSR 2:03.392 +23.737
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Di Grassi: Don’t judge Audi’s Le Mans chances on Silverstone form
Next article Conway: Toyota close to Audi but “work cut out” to rival Porsche
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Charles Bradley
Mika Hakkinen on his darkest day in F1
Formula 1
Formula 1
Mika Hakkinen on his darkest day in F1
Dillon: Spotter was “wrong” to shout “wreck him!” before Hamlin clash
NASCAR Cup
NASCAR Cup
Richmond II
Dillon: Spotter was “wrong” to shout “wreck him!” before Hamlin clash
Hamlin: NASCAR stripping Dillon of win would be “warranted”
NASCAR Cup
NASCAR Cup
Richmond II
Hamlin: NASCAR stripping Dillon of win would be “warranted”
More from
Romain Dumas
Ford SuperVan claims Goodwood Festival of Speed Shootout glory
Goodwood Festival of Speed
Goodwood Festival of Speed
Ford SuperVan claims Goodwood Festival of Speed Shootout glory
Le Mans winner Dumas joins Proton Porsche for Daytona return
IMSA
IMSA
Le Mans winner Dumas joins Proton Porsche for Daytona return
More from
Team Joest
The epic finale to the Le Mans 'diesel wars' - 10 years on
WEC
WEC
The epic finale to the Le Mans 'diesel wars' - 10 years on
Mazda announces IMSA line-ups for 2020 season
IMSA
IMSA
Mazda announces IMSA line-ups for 2020 season
Hunter-Reay set to race for Mazda in Rolex 24
IMSA
IMSA
Daytona 24
Hunter-Reay set to race for Mazda in Rolex 24
Latest news
Zara launches new Ayrton Senna clothing collection inspired by F1 legend
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
Zara launches new Ayrton Senna clothing collection inspired by F1 legend
Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Charlotte II
40 min
Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction
William Byron to run Jeff Gordon throwback Axalta scheme at Phoenix
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Charlotte II
1 h
William Byron to run Jeff Gordon throwback Axalta scheme at Phoenix
Alexander Rossi takes over IR-28 testing as IndyCar pushes new chassis to the limit at Sebring
IndyCar
Indy IndyCar 1 h
Alexander Rossi takes over IR-28 testing as IndyCar pushes new chassis to the limit at Sebring
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe