Practice report
WEC Spa-Francorchamps
Spa WEC: Porsche reasserts its authority in final practice
Porsche retook control of the timesheets in the third and final practice session for the WEC 6 Hours of Spa, as Timo Bernhard set by far the quickest time of the weekend.
Jamie Klein
Edited: May 6, 2016, 11:00 AM
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The German set what would prove the benchmark time in the #1 919 Hybrid at the very start of the 60-minute session, his 1m56.465s blitzing the 1m58.012s set by squadmate Brendon Hartley on Thursday.
It was enough to lead the sister #2 Porsche by 1.698s, whose best time of 1m58.163s came courtesy of Neel Jani inside the final 20 minutes.
Toyota, which took a surprise 1-2 in Thursday's second practice, beat Audi to secure the third-best time, Stephane Sarrazin clocking a 1m58.327s in the #6 TS050 Hybrid.
That was two tenths better than the Frenchman's session-topping effort from the opening day, and enough to beat the #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Andre Lotterer by six tenths.
Completing the top six were the #5 Toyota and the #8 Audi, which suffered another mishap as Loic Duval made contact with the #78 Proton Porsche 911 of Christian Ried at the Bus Stop chicane.
The R18 sustained front-left suspension damage that resulted in the car crabbing badly as it returned to the pits, although Audi was able to carry out repairs and get the #8 back out before the end of the session.
Rebellion continued its streak as top LMP1 privateer in seventh, the #13 R-One beating the #4 ByKolles by 1.5s to take class honours.
G-Drive tops LMP2, Ferrari quickest in GTE
In the LMP2 class, it was the #26 G-Drive Oreca that led the way by four tenths, courtesy of an early time from Rene Rast.
The Audi factory driver posted a 2m07.341s, half a second up on the best time in class on Thursday, to lead the two Signatech Alpine cars, the #35 beating the #36 to take the class runner-up spot.
GTE-Pro was once again topped by Ferrari, as James Calado posted a 2m17.874s in the #51 488 Italia to lead the sister #71 car by four tenths.
Aston Martin was best of the rest in third, Nicki Thiim setting a best effort of 2m18.730s in the #95, while a late effort of 2m19.860s from Mathias Lauda also saw the British marque lead the GTE-Am class.
Practice times:
PosDriverCarTimeGap 1 
Mark Webber
Brendon Hartley
Timo Bernhard Porsche 919 Hybrid '16 1:56.465 2 Marc Lieb
Romain Dumas
Neel Jani Porsche 919 Hybrid '16 1:58.163 +1.698 3 
Kamui Kobayashi
Mike Conway
Stéphane Sarrazin Toyota TS050 HYBRID 1:58.327 +1.862 4 Andre Lotterer
Benoit Tréluyer
Marcel Fassler Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16 1:58.976 +2.511 5 Anthony Davidson
Kazuki Nakajima
Sébastien Buemi Toyota TS050 HYBRID 1:59.440 +2.975 6 Loic Duval
Oliver Jarvis
Lucas di Grassi Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16 2:00.295 +3.830 7 Alexandre Imperatori
Matheo Tuscher
Dominik Kraihamer Rebellion R-One 2:02.751 +6.286 8 James Rossiter
Oliver Webb
Simon Trummer CLM P1/01 2:04.239 +7.774 9 Nelson Piquet Jr.
Nick Heidfeld
Nicolas Prost Rebellion R-One 2:04.718 +8.253 10 
Roman Rusinov
René Rast
Nathanael Berthon ORECA 05 2:07.341 +10.876 11 Nelson Panciatici
Ho-Pin Tung
David Cheng Alpine A460 2:07.771 +11.306 12 Nicolas Lapierre
Gustavo Menezes
Stéphane Richelmi Alpine A460 2:08.111 +11.646 13 
Tor Graves
Will Stevens
James Jakes ORECA 05 2:08.768 +12.303 14 
Ricardo Gonzalez
Filipe Albuquerque
Bruno Senna Ligier JS P2 2:09.494 +13.029 15 Devi Markozov
Nicolas Minassian
Maurizio Mediani BR Engineering BR01 2:09.759 +13.294 16 Jonny Kane
Nick Leventis
Danny Watts Gibson 015S 2:09.785 +13.320 17 Simon Dolan
Giedo van der Garde
Jake Dennis Gibson 015S 2:09.972 +13.507 18 Vitaly Petrov
Kirill Ladygin
Viktor Shaytar BR Engineering BR01 2:10.155 +13.690 19 Ryan Dalziel
Pipo Derani
Chris Cumming Ligier JS P2 2:10.764 +14.299 20 
Roberto Merhi
Matt Rao
Richard Bradley ORECA 05 2:11.006 +14.541 21 Scott Sharp
Ed Brown
Johannes van Overbeek Ligier JS P2 2:11.364 +14.899 22 Gianmaria Bruni
James Calado Ferrari 488 GTE 2:17.874 +21.409 23 Davide Rigon
Sam Bird Ferrari 488 GTE 2:18.203 +21.738 24 
Nicki Thiim
Marco Sorensen
Darren Turner Aston Martin Vantage V8 2:18.730 +22.265 25 Jonathan Adam
Richie Stanaway
Fernando Rees Aston Martin Vantage V8 2:19.255 +22.790 26 Andy Priaulx
Marino Franchitti
Harry Tincknell Ford GT '16 2:19.858 +23.393 27 Pedro Lamy
Paul Dalla Lana
Mathias Lauda Aston Martin Vantage V8 2:19.860 +23.395 28 Richard Lietz
Michael Christensen Porsche 911 RSR 2:20.022 +23.557 29 Paolo Ruberti
Yutaka Yamagishi
Pierre Ragues Chevrolet Corvette C7 GT3 2:20.494 +24.029 30 Christian Ried
Joel Camathias
Wolf Henzler Porsche 911 RSR 2:20.767 +24.302 31 Billy Johnson
Olivier Pla
Stefan Mücke Ford GT '16 2:20.941 +24.476 32 
Khaled Al Qubaisi
David Heinemeier Hansson
Patrick Long Porsche 911 RSR 2:20.965 +24.500 33 Emmanuel Collard
Rui Aguas
François Perrodo Ferrari F458 Italia 2:21.062 +24.597 34 Mike Wainwright
Adam Carroll
Ben Barker Porsche 911 RSR 2:21.403 +24.938
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