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Testing report

WEC Prologue: Toyota tops final session, but slower than LMP2 best

Toyota moved ahead of the best of the LMP2 runners in the final session of the official pre-season test at Spa ahead of Saturday's World Endurance Championship opener in Belgium.

#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 - Hybrid: Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Brendon Hartley

#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 - Hybrid: Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Brendon Hartley

JEP / Motorsport Images

Sebastien Buemi posted his 2m04.669s with 30 minutes left on the clock of the three-hour Prologue session on Tuesday afternoon aboard the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar.

The time, an improvement of less than a tenth over the previous Toyota best set by Jose Maria Lopez in the sister car on Tuesday morning, put him just ahead of Filipe Albuquerque in the United Autosports ORECA-Gibson 07.

But Buemi's lap was still half a second down on the quickest time over the two days set by Nyck de Vries in the fastest of G-Drive Racing's ORECA P2s, a 2m04.168s from the Tuesday morning session.

Albuquerque looked to be on course to top the times in a third of the prologue's four sessions with a 2m04.874s until the improvement from the Toyota in Buemi's hands.

The Portuguese driver's Tuesday afternoon lap was six tenths shy of his test best from the morning, a 2m04.284s that gave him second spot in the combined times from across the two days.

The grandfathered Alpine-Gibson A480, which formerly raced as the Rebellion R-13, ended up third in the final period of testing.

Vaxiviere set a 2m05.339s, which was nearly three tenths slower than he managed on Monday afternoon.

#36 Alpine Elf Matmut Alpine 480 Gibson: Andre Negrao, Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere

#36 Alpine Elf Matmut Alpine 480 Gibson: Andre Negrao, Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Kamui Kobayashi took fourth spot on the timesheets in the second of the Toyotas, which completed 77 laps over the day after managing only one proper timed lap on Monday as a result of hydraulic and electronic problems.

Gabriel Aubry claimed fifth spot with a 2m05.958s in the PR1/Mathiasen ORECA, which was a couple of tenths quicker up on sixth-placed WRT driver Ferdinand Habsburg.

Porsche maintained its stranglehold on the top of the times in GTE Pro, although this time it was #91 car that came out on top.

Richard Lietz led the way in class with a 2m14.244s in his Manthey-run Porsche 911 RSR, which put him less then a tenth up on James Calado's 2m14.313s in the quickest of the AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evos.

Lietz's time was more than a second down on Kevin Estre's 2m12.916s from Tuesday morning, which stood as the fastest GTE Pro lap of the test.

Miguel Molina was third in the second AF Corse Ferrari, while Estre was only fourth in the class order after going quickest in the opening three sessions.

The rankings in GTE Am on Tuesday afternoon was led by Dylan Pereira, who posted a 2m14.969s aboard his TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage GTE.

The WEC Spa 6 Hours starts on Saturday May 1 at 1.30pm CET, with practice and qualifying scheduled on Thursday and Friday. All sessions of the event will be streamed live on Motorsport.tv

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