Le Mans 24 Hours: Sebastien Buemi tops warm-up for Toyota
Toyota topped the warm-up for the Le Mans 24 Hours, with Sebastien Buemi putting the #8 TS040 HYBRID at the top of the order
The ex-Toro Rosso Formula 1 racer went fastest with six minutes remaining in the 45-minute session.
Buemi's lap was all about consistency across the circuit's three sectors, as he did not set a single personal best sector time but still managed to go quickest by having a clean run for the whole lap.
That briefly gave Toyota a one-two as Nicolas Lapierre had been fastest until then, but the Japanese cars were split by Andre Lotterer's Audi with three minutes to go.
Filipe Albuquerque was on course to challenge Lapierre's time at the end of the session, but after being within a tenth of the fastest time two-thirds of the way through the lap, the #3 Audi aborted the lap and came into the pits.
Porsche did not factor at the front during the session, with Mark Webber's brief appearance in fourth place with the #20 919 Hybrid as high as the manufacturer ran at any point.
By the end of the session the Porsches - which both returned to the pits before the session was over - had been bumped to the bottom of the 'factory' LMP1 ranks, with the #20 in sixth ahead of the #14 car that fought for pole position on Thursday night.
Pierre Thiriet set the pace in LMP2 driving the #46 TDS Racing Ligier JSP2 that will start the race on class pole position with a late lap of 3m40.263s.
This relegated Nathanael Berthon's #48 Murphy Prototypes ORECA-Nissan 03R, which had gone fastest with five minutes of the session remaining, to second by just over a tenth.
Jann Mardenborough was third fastest in the #35 OAK Racing Ligier, with the sister Morgan, run under the G-Drive Racing banner, of Olivier Pla fourth fastest.
Mika Salo crashed the AF Corse-run SMP Racing ORECA at the entry to the Porsche Curves late in the session, possibly after suffering a rear puncture, but the car did not suffer significant damage.
Following a heavy head-on impact with the wall on Thursday after going off while attempting to pass the cruising Audi of Lucas di Grassi, the #29 Pegasus Racing Morgan returned to the track after repairs, but was slowest in class in the hands of Nicolas Leutwiler.
Corvette topped the GTE times with Jan Magnussen posting a 3m54.938s early in the session.
The #73 CR.7 comfortably usurped the leading AF Corse Ferrari's early benchmark and remained on top for the remainder of the warm-up, despite a late improvement from poleman Gianmaria Bruni, who cut the #51 458 Italia's best to 3m56.062s.
Richard Westbrook made it a Corvette 1-3 on the #74 car's final flying lap, but he was almost three seconds behind Magnussen's time.
Westbrook was actually fourth fastest overall in GTE, as Nicki Thiim put the #95 Aston Martin Vantage atop the GTE Am times with a 3m57.520s.
Thiim knocked the #98 AMR car off top spot with his best lap, but Pedro Lamy's 3m59.98s was still good enough to make it an Aston one-two in the division.
The #79 ProSpeed Porsche, rebuilt overnight and moved into the Pro division after a crash for Bret Curtis ruled the American out of the race, completed five laps. Jeroen Bleekemolen set its best time, but the car ended up slowest in its class.
Nissan's experimental ZEOD machine also had a session of note, with Wolfgang Reip completing the project's aim of the first all-electric lap of the Circuit de la Sarthe.
WARM UP TIMES Pos Cl Car Drivers Time Laps 1. LMP1 #8 Toyota Davidson/Lapierre/Buemi 3m23.731s 10 2. LMP1 #2 Audi Fassler/Lotterer/Treluyer 3m23.741s 13 3. LMP1 #7 Toyota Wurz/Sarrazin/Nakajima 3m24.196s 10 4. LMP1 #3 Audi Albuquerque/Bonanomi/Jarvis 3m25.211s 13 5. LMP1 #1 Audi Di Grassi/Gene/Kristensen 3m27.617s 11 6. LMP1 #20 Porsche Bernhard/Webber/Hartley 3m27.995s 9 7. LMP1 #14 Porsche Dumas/Jani/Lieb 3m29.827s 10 8. LMP1 #13 Rebellion Kraihamer/Belicchi/Leimer 3m30.482s 10 9. LMP1 #12 Rebellion Prost/Heidfeld/Beche 3m32.739s 10 10. LMP2 #46 Ligier Thiriet/Badey/Gommendy 3m40.263s 11 11. LMP2 #48 Oreca Berthon/Gonzalez/Chandhok 3m40.385s 10 12. LMP2 #35 Ligier Brundle/Mardenborough/Shulzhitskiy 3m40.519s 8 13. LMP2 #26 Morgan Rusinov/Pla/Canal 3m40.615s 9 14. LMP2 #47 Oreca Howson/Bradley/Imperatori 3m41.255s 10 15. LMP2 #36 Alpine Chatin/Panciatici/Webb 3m41.711s 11 16. LMP2 #38 Zytek Dolan/Tincknell/Turvey 3m42.643s 12 17. LMP2 #27 Oreca Zlobin/Salo/Ladygin 3m42.849s 9 18. LMP2 #34 Oreca Frey/Mailleux/Lancaster 3m44.138s 10 19. LMP2 #41 Zytek Munemman/Latif/Winslow 3m44.140s 7 20. LMP2 #42 Zytek Kimber-Smith/McMurry/Dyson 3m44.436s 7 21. LMP2 #50 Morgan Ragues/Taylor/Ihara 3m45.065s 10 22. LMP2 #37 Oreca Ladygin/Minassian/Mediani 3m45.687s 10 23. LMP2 #24 Oreca Rast/Charouz/Capillaire 3m47.670s 10 24. LMP2 #33 Ligier Cheng/Tung/Fong 3m49.506s 7 25. LMP2 #43 Morgan Klien/Hirsch/Brandela 3m51.045s 3 26. GTEP #73 Chevrolet Magnussen/Garcia/Taylor 3m54.938s 8 27. LMP2 #29 Morgan Schell/Leutwiller/Roussel 3m55.251s 7 28. GTEP #51 Ferrari Bruni/Vilander/Fisichella 3m56.062s 11 29. GTEA #95 Aston Poulsen/Heinemeier-Hansson/Thiim 3m57.520s 5 30. GTEP #74 Chevrolet Gavin/Milner/Westbrook 3m57.843s 10 31. GTEP #97 Aston Turner/Mucke/Senna 3m58.924s 8 32. GTEA #98 Aston Dalla Lana/Lamy/Nygaard 3m59.198s 6 33. GTEA #90 Ferrari Montecalvo/Roda/Ruberti 3m59.469s 5 34. GTEP #91 Porsche Pilet/Bergmeister/Tandy 3m59.798s 6 35. GTEP #92 Porsche Holzer/Makowiecki/Lietz 3m59.856s 5 36. GTEA #60 Ferrari Mann/Case/Giammaria 4m00.144s 10 37. GTEA #76 Porsche Narac/Armindo/Hallyday 4m01.709s 5 38. GTEA #58 Ferrari Barthez/Pons/Ayari 4m01.714s 5 39. GTEP #71 Ferrari Rigon/Kaffer/Beretta 4m02.385s 10 40. GTEA #75 Porsche Perrodo/Collard/Palttala 4m02.972s 11 41. GTEA #77 Porsche Dempsey/Foster/Long 4m03.234s 4 42. GTEP #79 Porsche MacNeil/Curtis/Bleekemolen 4m03.238s 5 43. GTEA #81 Ferrari Wyatt/Rugolo/Bird 4m03.574s 10 44. GTEA #88 Porsche Ried/Bachler/Al Qubaisi 4m03.898s 6 45. GTEA #66 Ferrari Al Faisal/Neiman/Pumpelly 4m04.262s 10 46. GTEA #72 Ferrari Bertolini/Shaitar/Basov 4m05.997s 7 47. GTEA #57 Ferrari Krohn/Jonsson/Collins 4m08.089s 7 48. GTEA #70 Ferrari Nakano/Ehret/Rich 4m08.636s 8 49. GTEA #67 Porsche Maris/Merlin/Helary 4m10.610s 9 50. GTEA #62 Ferrari Mallegol/Bachelier/Blank 4m18.539s 7 51. CDNT #0 Nissan Ordonez/Reip/Motoyama 4m22.159s 3 52. GTEP #52 Ferrari Griffin/Parente/Leo 3 53. GTEA #53 Ferrari Mowlem/Patterson/Hamilton 2 54. GTEA #61 Ferrari Perez-Companc/Cioci/Venturi 2
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