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Sebring WEC: Jose Maria Lopez leads Toyota one-two in practice

Toyota again locked out the top two spots in the times during Wednesday evening's second practice session for the Sebring 1000 Miles World Endurance Championship round

Jose Maria Lopez put the #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid ahead with an early best lap of 1m41.730s, going marginally quicker than Kazuki Nakajima had managed in first practice earlier in the day.

The Argentinian's time remained untroubled for the remainder of the 90-minute session.

Nakajima was again the quickest of the #8 Toyota drivers, but his best effort of 1m42.517s, which came around the halfway mark, was 0.787 seconds adrift.

There was some late drama for the #8 crew when Fernando Alonso suffered a spin late on at Turn 1, albeit without consequences.

SMP Racing reversed the non-hybrid LMP1 pecking order from first practice with the third and fourth-fastest times for its pair of AER-powered BR Engineering BR1s.

Stephane Sarrazin posted a marginally quicker time in the #17 car, 1.279s off the pace and exactly one hundredth up on SMP newcomer Brendon Hartley in the #11 machine.

Thomas Laurent led the Rebellion Racing charge in fifth place, ahead of Bruno Senna in the second Rebellion R13-Gibson and Ben Hanley in the DragonSpeed BR1.

Jackie Chan DC Racing led the way in the LMP2 class courtesy of a 1m47.716s effort from Stephane Richelmi at the wheel of the #37 ORECA 07.

That was enough to beat Nicolas Lapierre in the #36 Signatech Alpine ORECA by just under half a second.

The DragonSpeed ORECA caused an early full-course yellow when it shed its left-rear wheel while Anthony Davidson was aboard. The car was able to return to the track after a delay of almost an hour.

GTE Pro was led by Aston Martin as Alex Lynn logged a 1m57.792s in the #97 Vantage GTE.

Ford occupied the next two spots in class, as Harry Tincknell's time in the #67 fell just short 0.033s short of Lynn's but eclipsed team-mate Stefan Mucke's by a tenth.

The best of the Ferrari 488 GTEs, the #51 car, was fifth, behind the #95 Aston Martin, while Porsche's top representative was the points-leading #92 car in sixth.

Corvette Racing's sole C7.R propped up the class leaderboard in 11th.

Ben Barker put in a late flyer of 1m59.327s to move the Gulf Racing Porsche squad to the top of the times in GTE Am, a little under a tenth up on Giancarlo Fisichella's Spirit of Race Ferrari.

Project 1 Racing, which didn't take part in first practice as it built up the spare chassis that arrived at Sebring on Wednesday morning, completed 27 laps and ended up eighth of the nine runners in class.

Practice two times

Pos Class Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 LMP1 M.Conway, K.Kobayashi, J.M.Lopez Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 1m41.730s - 45
2 LMP1 S.Buemi, K.Nakajima, F.Alonso Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 1m42.262s 0.532s 48
3 LMP1 S.Sarrazin, E.Orudzhev, S.Sirotkin SMP Racing BR Engineering/AER 1m43.009s 1.279s 34
4 LMP1 M.Aleshin, V.Petrov, B.Hartley SMP Racing BR Engineering/AER 1m43.019s 1.289s 31
5 LMP1 N.Berthon, T.Laurent, G.Menezes Rebellion Racing Rebellion/Gibson 1m43.362s 1.632s 36
6 LMP1 N.Jani, M.Beche, B.Senna Rebellion Racing Rebellion/Gibson 1m44.064s 2.334s 40
7 LMP1 H.Hedman, B.Hanley, R.van der Zande DragonSpeed BR Engineering/Gibson 1m46.050s 4.320s 34
8 LMP2 H-Pin Tung, G.Aubry, S.Richelmi Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA/Gibson 1m47.716s 5.986s 37
9 LMP2 N.Lapierre, A.Negrao, P.Thiriet Signatech Alpine Matmut Alpine/Gibson 1m48.213s 6.483s 40
10 LMP2 F.Perrodo, M.Vaxiviere, L.Duval TDS Racing ORECA/Gibson 1m48.316s 6.586s 40
11 LMP2 D.H.Hansson, J.King, W.Stevens Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA/Gibson 1m49.119s 7.389s 40
12 LMP2 E.Creed, R.Ricci, G.Jeannette Larbre Competition Ligier/Gibson 1m50.463s 8.733s 38
13 LMP2 R.Gonzalez, P.Maldonado, A.Davidson DragonSpeed ORECA/Gibson 1m50.497s 8.767s 18
14 LMP2 F.van Eerd, G.van der Garde, N.de Vries Racing Team Nederland Dallara/Gibson 1m53.842s 12.112s 8
15 GTE Pro A.Lynn, M.Martin Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 1m57.792s 16.062s 38
16 GTE Pro A.Priaulx, H.Tincknell, J.Bomarito Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford 1m57.825s 16.095s 35
17 GTE Pro S.Mucke, O.Pla, B.Johnson Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford 1m57.961s 16.231s 35
18 GTE Pro A.P.Guidi, J.Calado, D.Serra AF Corse Ferrari 1m58.063s 16.333s 33
19 GTE Pro M.Sorensen, N.Thiim, D.Turner Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 1m58.098s 16.368s 35
20 GTE Pro M.Christensen, K.Estre Porsche GT Team Porsche 1m58.388s 16.658s 38
21 GTE Pro R.Lietz, G.Bruni Porsche GT Team Porsche 1m58.447s 16.717s 40
22 GTE Pro D.Rigon, S.Bird, M.Molina AF Corse Ferrari 1m58.622s 16.892s 39
23 GTE Pro A.Farfus, A.F.da Costa, B.Spengler BMW Team MTEK BMW 1m58.706s 16.976s 37
24 GTE Pro M.Tomczyk, N.Catsburg, A.Sims BMW Team MTEK BMW 1m58.731s 17.001s 40
25 GTE Pro J.Magnussen, A.Garcia, M.Rockenfeller Corvette Racing Chevrolet 1m58.795s 17.065s 29
26 GTE Am M.Wainwright, B.Barker, T.Preining Gulf Racing Porsche 1m59.327s 17.597s 38
27 GTE Am T.Flohr, F.Castellacci, G.Fisichella Spirit of Race Ferrari 1m59.407s 17.677s 37
28 GTE Am G.Roda, G.Roda, M.Cairoli Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 1m59.457s 17.727s 36
29 GTE Am L.P.-Companc, M.Cressoni, M.Griffin Clearwater Racing Ferrari 1m59.549s 17.819s 34
30 GTE Am P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 1m59.778s 18.048s 35
31 GTE Am M.Ishikawa, O.Beretta, E.Cheever MR Racing Ferrari 1m59.853s 18.123s 37
32 GTE Am C.Ried, J.Andlauer, M.Campbell Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 2m00.136s 18.406s 18
33 GTE Am J.Bergmeister, P.Lindsey, E.Perfetti Team Project 1 Porsche 2m00.156s 18.426s 32
34 GTE Am S.Yoluc, J.Adam, C.Eastwood TF Sport Aston Martin 2m00.789s 19.059s 40


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