Alonso took over the #8 TS050 Hybrid from teammate Sebastien Buemi 35 minutes into the 90-minute session, and promptly set a best time of 1m58.392s, almost exactly a tenth faster than Buemi.

That put the two-time Formula 1 champion 0.237s ahead of the sister #7 Toyota, whose fastest time was set by Mike Conway.

The best of the non-hybrid privateer LMP1s was the #3 Rebellion R-13-Gibson, which lapped with 0.457s off the pace in the hands of Thomas Laurent late in the session.

That demoted the #10 DragonSpeed BR Engineering BR1-Gibson, driven by Ben Hanley, to fourth, ahead of the sister #1 Oreca-built Rebellion car of Bruno Senna, which was 1.2s slower than the best of the Toyotas.

ByKolles was sixth-fastest with its revised ENSO CLM P1/01-Nissan with Tom Dillmann at the wheel, a further half a second down.

SMP Racing only got its #17 BR1-AER out for a timed run in the closing stages of the session, and was seventh-fastest with Egor Orudzhev at the wheel.

The sister #10 car of Mikhail Aleshin was slower than best of the LMP2 runners, the DragonSpeed Oreca.

Pastor Maldonado set the best time in the secondary class, a 2m03.494s in the #31 Oreca 07-Gibson to go 0.640s faster than Andre Negrao in the Alpine-badged #36 Signatech Oreca.

Jean-Eric Vergne put G-Drive Racing's part-time Oreca entry third in class, less than a tenth further back, ahead of the two Jota Sport-run Jackie Chan DC Racing cars.

Manor failed to get either of its Ginetta G60-LT-P1-Mecachrome out for a timed lap, with both the #5 and #6 cars only managing a single installation lap apiece.

Ford leads Porsche in GTE Pro

Ford led a 1-2 in the GTE Pro division, with Andy Priaulx setting the best time in class of 2m15.014s in the #67 GT ahead of Olivier Pla in the sister #66 machine.

Best of the rest was WEC returnee Gianmaria Bruni in the #91 Porsche, albeit six tenths off the pace, followed by Kevin Estre in the #92 911 RSR.

The best of the updated Ferrari 488 GTEs was fifth, 1.3s off the pace in the hands of James Calado, while the best of the new BMW M8 GTEs was sixth with Tom Blomqvist at the wheel.

Aston Martin brought up the rear of the class with its pair of new-generation Vantages.

Porsche locked out the top four spots in the GTE Am division, led by Matteo Cairoli in the #88 Dempsey-Proton Racing entry on a 2m16.601s - sixth overall among the GTE contingent.

Pos.	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Time	Gap
1	8	Fernando Alonso   Kazuki Nakajima   Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	35	1'58.392
2	7	Kamui Kobayashi   Mike Conway   Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	36	1'58.629	0.237
3	3	Mathias Beche   Thomas Laurent   Gustavo Menezes	Rebellion R13 - Gibson	LMP1	32	1'58.849	0.457
4	10	Henrik Hedman   Ben Hanley   Pietro Fittipaldi	BR Engineering BR1 - Gibson	LMP1	30	1'59.321	0.929
5	1	Andre Lotterer   Bruno Senna   Neel Jani	Rebellion R13 - Gibson	LMP1	24	1'59.681	1.289
6	4	Oliver Webb   Dominik Kraihamer   Tom Dillmann	ENSO CLM P1/01 - Nismo	LMP1	18	2'00.132	1.740
7	17	Stéphane Sarrazin   Matevos Isaakyan   Egor Orudzhev	BR Engineering BR1 - AER	LMP1	9	2'01.499	3.107
8	31	Pastor Maldonado   Nathanael Berthon   Roberto Gonzalez	Oreca 07 - Gibson	LMP2	28	2'03.494	5.102
9	11	Vitaly Petrov   Mikhail Aleshin	BR Engineering BR1 - AER	LMP1	11	2'03.906	5.514
10	36	Nicolas Lapierre   Pierre Thiriet   Andre Negrao	Alpine A470 - Gibson	LMP2	27	2'04.134	5.742
11	26	Jean-Eric Vergne   Roman Rusinov   Andrea Pizzitola	Oreca 07 - Gibson	LMP2	28	2'04.198	5.806
12	37	Nabil Jeffri   Weiron Tan   Jazeman Jaafar	Oreca 07 - Gibson	LMP2	28	2'04.381	5.989
13	38	Ho-Pin Tung   Stéphane Richelmi   Gabriel Aubry	Oreca 07 - Gibson	LMP2	30	2'04.558	6.166
14	29	Jan Lammers   Giedo van der Garde   Frits van Eerd	Dallara P217 - Gibson	LMP2	24	2'04.693	6.301
15	28	Loic Duval   François Perrodo   Matthieu Vaxiviere	Oreca 07 - Gibson	LMP2	36	2'04.726	6.334
16	50	Fernando Rees   Romano Ricci   Erwin Creed	Ligier JSP217 - Gibson	LMP2	25	2'06.511	8.119
17	67	Harry Tincknell   Tony Kanaan   Andy Priaulx	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	30	2'15.014	16.622
18	66	Stefan Mücke   Olivier Pla   Billy Johnson	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	30	2'15.273	16.881
19	91	Gianmaria Bruni   Richard Lietz	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	29	2'15.631	17.239
20	92	Michael Christensen   Kevin Estre	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	26	2'15.717	17.325
21	51	James Calado   Alessandro Pier Guidi	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	25	2'16.397	18.005
22	88	Khaled Al Qubaisi   Matteo Cairoli   Giorgio Roda	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	32	2'16.601	18.209
23	82	Antonio Felix da Costa  Tom Blomqvist	BMW M8 GTE	LMGTE PRO	33	2'16.606	18.214
24	71	Sam Bird   Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	25	2'16.789	18.397
25	86	Michael Wainwright   Ben Barker   Alex Davison	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	30	2'17.552	19.160
26	81	Nick Catsburg   Martin Tomczyk	BMW M8 GTE	LMGTE PRO	31	2'17.812	19.420
27	97	Jonathan Adam   Maxime Martin   Alex Lynn	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	33	2'17.993	19.601
28	77	Christian Ried   Matt Campbell   Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	27	2'18.006	19.614
29	56	Jörg Bergmeister   Patrick Lindsey   Egidio Perfetti	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	29	2'18.108	19.716
30	95	Marco Sorensen   Nicki Thiim   Darren Turner	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	31	2'18.227	19.835
31	90	Salih Yoluc   Euan Hankey   Charlie Eastwood	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE AM	33	2'18.355	19.963
32	98	Pedro Lamy   Paul Dalla Lana   Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE AM	34	2'18.458	20.066
33	61	Matt Griffin   Mok Weng Sun   Keita Sawa	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	29	2'19.147	20.755
34	70	Olivier Beretta   Motoaki Ishikawa   Eddie Cheever III	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	32	2'19.317	20.925
35	54	Giancarlo Fisichella   Francesco Castellacci   Thomas Flohr	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	31	2'20.300	21.908