Silverstone WEC: Toyota still on top but trouble for Lopez

A damp-but-drying track meant times fell quickly in the opening part of the hour-long session, and it was the #8 Toyota TS050 that led the way early on in the hands of Anthony Davidson.

As conditions improved, Porsche took over at the top of the times as Nick Tandy went quickest in the #1 Porsche 919 on a 1m40.243s, a time Neel Jani improved on fractionally with a 1m40.223s.

But in the final 10 minutes, Davidson put Toyota back on top with a 1m39.476s in the #8 car, which left the Japanese marque 0.747s up on Jani's Porsche.

Toyota can make up for its 2017 heartbreak

Brendon Hartley was a further 0.150s back in third place in the sister #2 Porsche, ahead of the second of the Toyotas, which had an eventful session.

A data issue left the #7 machine in the garage for the first half-hour, and Jose Maria Lopez attracted the attention of the stewards when he had a scrape with Paul Dalla Lana's Aston Martin at Luffield late on as he tried to pass the #98 Vantage around the outside.

Lopez set the car's best time, a 1m40.656s, to go 1.180s slower than Davidson's benchmark, and was reported to the stewards for dangerous driving.

Setting the pace in the LMP2 class was the TDS Racing ORECA of Matthieu Vaxiviere, who did a 1m44.105s.

That left the #28 car four tenths up on the other TDS-run car, the #26 G-Drive machine of Roman Rusinov, while third was the best of the Jota-run ORECAs, the #38 DC Racing machine.

The ByKolles ENSO CLM P1/01 was slower than all bar one of the LMP2 contingent, as Oliver Webb set the #4 car's best time of 1m46.515s.

FORD LEADS THE WAY IN GTE

Andy Priaulx put Ford on top in the GTE Pro battle, with a best time of 1m56.233s in the quicker of the two Ganassi-run cars - four tenths up on squadmate Stefan Mucke in the second Ford GT.

Ferrari was third and fourth in class, James Calado giving the Scuderia its best time of 1m57.268s in the #51 488 GTE.

The best of the GTE Am cars, the #98 Aston Martin, was also the fifth-best GTE car overall, thanks to a 1m58.691s set by Pedro Lamy before the car's incident with Lopez's Toyota.

PRACTICE THREE TIMES:

Pos	Class	Driver	Team	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	LMP1	S.Buemi, A.Davidson, K.Nakajima	Toyota Gazoo Racing	Toyota	1m39.476s	-	27
2	LMP1	N.Jani, A.Lotterer, N.Tandy	Porsche LMP Team	Porsche	1m40.223s	0.747s	29
3	LMP1	T.Bernhard, E.Bamber, B.Hartley	Porsche LMP Team	Porsche	1m40.373s	0.897s	26
4	LMP1	M.Conway, K.Kobayashi, J.M.Lopez	Toyota Gazoo Racing	Toyota	1m40.656s	1.180s	20
5	LMP2	F.Perrodo, M.Vaxiviere, E.Collard	TDS Racing	ORECA/Gibson	1m44.105s	4.629s	26
6	LMP2	R.Rusinov, P.Thiriet, A.Lynn	G-Drive Racing	ORECA/Gibson	1m44.485s	5.009s	27
7	LMP2	H-Pin Tung, O.Jarvis, T.Laurent	Jackie Chan DC Racing	ORECA/Gibson	1m45.344s	5.868s	29
8	LMP2	R.Gonzalez, S.Trummer, V.Petrov	CEFC Manor TRS Racing	ORECA/Gibson	1m45.848s	6.372s	24
9	LMP2	N.Lapierre, G.Menezes, M.Rao	Signatech Alpine Matmut	Alpine/Gibson	1m45.981s	6.505s	26
10	LMP2	J.Canal, N.Prost, B.Senna	Vaillante Rebellion	ORECA/Gibson	1m46.143s	6.667s	26
11	LMP2	T.Graves, J.Hirschi, J-E.Vergne	CEFC Manor TRS Racing	ORECA/Gibson	1m46.363s	6.887s	27
12	LMP2	M.Beche, D.H.Hansson, N.Piquet Jr.	Vaillante Rebellion	ORECA/Gibson	1m46.366s	6.890s	22
13	LMP1	O.Webb, J.Rossiter, D.Kraihamer	ByKOLLES Racing Team	ENSO CLM/NISMO	1m46.515s	7.039s	21
14	LMP2	D.Cheng, A.Brundle, T.Gommendy	Jackie Chan DC Racing	ORECA/Gibson	1m47.051s	7.575s	21
15	GTE Pro	A.Priaulx, H.Tincknell, P.Derani	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Ford	1m56.233s	16.757s	24
16	GTE Pro	S.Mucke, O.Pla, B.Johnson	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Ford	1m56.628s	17.152s	20
17	GTE Pro	J.Calado, A.P.Guidi	AF Corse	Ferrari	1m57.268s	17.792s	22
18	GTE Pro	D.Rigon, S.Bird	AF Corse	Ferrari	1m57.892s	18.416s	20
19	GTE Am	P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	1m58.691s	19.215s	22
20	GTE Am	Mok W.S., K.Sawa, M.Griffin	Clearwater Racing	Ferrari	1m59.083s	19.607s	26
21	GTE Pro	R.Lietz, F.Makowiecki	Porsche GT Team	Porsche	1m59.540s	20.064s	27
22	GTE Am	T.Flohr, F.Castellacci, M.Molina	Spirit of Race	Ferrari	1m59.544s	20.068s	24
23	GTE Pro	D.Turner, J.Adam, D.Serra	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	1m59.591s	20.115s	26
24	GTE Pro	N.Thiim, M.Sorensen, R.Stanaway	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	1m59.597s	20.121s	27
25	GTE Pro	M.Christensen, K.Estre	Porsche GT Team	Porsche	1m59.685s	20.209s	19
26	GTE Am	C.Ried, M.Cairoli, M.Dienst	Dempsey-Proton Racing	Porsche	1m59.840s	20.364s	25
27	GTE Am	M.Wainwright, B.Barker, N.Foster	Gulf Racing	Porsche	2m02.353s	22.877s	23