WEC Sebring: Toyota fastest but suffers crash in truncated final practice

Kamui Kobayashi set a blistering time of 1m45.783s in the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID to lead a one-two finish for the Japanese marque ahead of Thursday’s afternoon qualifying for the Sebring 1000 Miles.

The 36-year-old set his fastest lap with 40 minutes remaining, dethroning the #50 Ferrari that had sat atop the timesheets with Antonio Fuoco at the wheel.

His time was a full 1.2s quicker than Wednesday’s benchmark time set by Brendon Hartley in the sister #8 car and cemented Toyota’s status as the favourite for pole position in the expanded 11-car Hypercar class.

However, it wasn’t a clean session for the #7 car with Kobayashi’s team-mate Lopez hitting the barriers at Turn 13 rear-first in the final 10 minutes of practice, a year on from his double incident that allowed rival Alpine to win the race.

The impact led to some visible damage and, with Nicklas Nielsen also crashing his #50 Ferrari at almost the same time, the session was red-flagged with just under six minutes left on the clock.

A decision was made not to resume practice, but the #7 Toyota still ended up fastest courtesy of Kobayashi’s early time.

Hartley ensured Toyota finished first and second despite the late drama, but he ended up more than six tenths adrift of Kobayashi despite having set his quickest lap time just second after his Japanese squadmate.

Ferrari was again Toyota’s quickest challenger in practice, with Fuoco’s early time of 1m46.77s good enough for third on the timesheets, albeit a second down on Kobayashi’s chart-topping effort.

Cadillac jumped to fourth late in the final 10 minutes when Alex Lynn lapped the Sebring International Circuit in 1m47.155s aboard the #2 Chip Ganassi Racing V-Series.R.

#50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

Peugeot enjoyed its most competitive outing of the weekend so far with Mikkel Jensen lapping the #93 9X8 in 1m47.965s, although it was still two seconds slower than the fastest time of the day.

The two Porsche Penske cars finished sixth and eighth respectively, with Michael Christensen the faster of the two in the #5 963 LMDh.

The two Porsches were split by Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari 499P, while the sole Glickenhaus finished 10th with Romain Dumas at the wheel.

The #4 Vanwall stopped on track just after the pit exit at the start of practice, with Tom Dillmann reporting a lack of power from the car’s non-hybrid Gibson engine. A full course yellow had to be deployed to retrieve the car, which didn’t return later in practice - losing a full-hour of mileage as a result.

Pietro Fittipaldi again led the way for Jota in the LMP2 division, improving his own benchmark from Wednesday to a 1m50.102s in the #28 ORECA-Gibson 07.

Philip Hanson ended up second in the #22 United Autosports ORECA with a time fractionally slower than Fittipaldi, while third-place went to the other Jota LMP2 entry piloted by Yifei Ye.

Oliver Jarvis’ time of 1m50.291s in the #23 ORECA made it a duopoly for Jota and United at the front end of the LMP2 field, as the four cars from the two teams were separated by just 0.163s seconds at the end of the session.

Lamborghini driver Mirko Bortolotti put the #63 Prema in fifth place with his best effort of 1m1m50.409s, which was 0.281s down on the fastest class time of the session.

In GTE Am, factory Aston Martin driver Nicki Thiim set the fastest time in the #98 Northwest AMR Vantage GTE, beating the #86 GR Racing Porsche of Riccardo Pera by 0.043s.

Daniel Serra finished another 0.011s adrift in third position with his #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE.

WEC Sebring - FP3 results:

Cla	#	Drivers		Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	7	Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez		Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'45.783
2	8	Sébastien Buemi Brendon Hartley Ryo Hirakawa		Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'46.392	0.609
3	50	Antonio Fuoco Miguel Molina Nicklas Nielsen		Ferrari 499P	HYPERCAR	1'46.777	0.994
4	2	Earl Bamber Alex Lynn Richard Westbrook		Cadillac V-Series.R	HYPERCAR	1'47.155	1.372
5	93	Paul di Resta Mikkel Jensen Jean-Eric Vergne		Peugeot 9X8	HYPERCAR	1'47.965	2.182
6	5	Dane Cameron Michael Christensen Frédéric Makowiecki		Porsche 963	HYPERCAR	1'48.303	2.520
7	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado Antonio Giovinazzi		Ferrari 499P	HYPERCAR	1'48.425	2.642
8	6	Kevin Estre Andre Lotterer Laurens Vanthoor		Porsche 963	HYPERCAR	1'48.485	2.702
9	94	Loic Duval Gustavo Menezes Nico Müller		Peugeot 9X8	HYPERCAR	1'48.602	2.819
10	28	David Heinemeier Hansson Pietro Fittipaldi Oliver Rasmussen		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.128	4.345
11	22	Frederick Lubin Philip Hanson Filipe Albuquerque		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.218	4.435
12	48	David Beckmann Ye Yifei Will Stevens		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.256	4.473
13	23	Josh Pierson Tom Blomqvist Oliver Jarvis		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.291	4.508
14	63	Doriane Pin Mirko Bortolotti Daniil Kvyat		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.409	4.626
15	36	Matthieu Vaxiviere Julien Canal Charles Milesi		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.467	4.684
16	9	Filip Ugran Bent Viscaal Andrea Caldarelli		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.912	5.129
17	31	Sean Gelael Ferdinand Habsburg Robin Frijns		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.162	5.379
18	35	Andre Negrao Memo Rojas Olli Caldwell		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.281	5.498
19	708	Romain Dumas Ryan Briscoe Olivier Pla		Glickenhaus 007	HYPERCAR	1'51.288	5.505
20	41	Rui Andrade Robert Kubica Louis Deletraz		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.495	5.712
21	34	Jakub Smiechowski Fabio Scherer Albert Costa		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.556	5.773
22	10	Ryan Cullen Matthias Kaiser Gabriel Aubry		Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.579	5.796
23	98	Paul Dalla Lana Axcil Jefferies Nicki Thiim		Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'59.030	13.247
24	86	Michael Wainwright Riccardo Pera Benjamin Barker		Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'59.073	13.290
25	57	Takeshi Kimura Scott Huffaker Daniel Serra		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'59.084	13.301
26	54	Thomas Flohr Francesco Castellacci Davide Rigon		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'59.093	13.310
27	33	Ben Keating Nicolas Varrone Nick Catsburg		Chevrolet Corvette C8.R	LMGTE AM	1'59.098	13.315
28	83	Luis Perez Companc Lilou Wadoux Alessio Rovera		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'59.119	13.336
29	77	Christian Ried Mikkel Pedersen Julien Andlauer		Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'59.210	13.427
30	21	Stefano Costantini Simon Mann Ulysse De		Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'59.216	13.433
31	60	Claudio Schiavoni Matteo Cressoni Alessio Picariello		Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'59.325	13.542
32	85	Sarah Bovy Michelle Gatting Rahel Frey		Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'59.487	13.704
33	25	Ahmad Al Harthy Michael Dinan Charles Eastwood		Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'59.622	13.839
34	56	PJ Hyett Gunnar Jeannette Matteo Cairoli		Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'59.637	13.854
35	777	Satoshi Hoshino Casper Stevenson Tomonobu Fujii		Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	2'00.880	15.097
36	4	Tom Dillmann Esteban Guerrieri Jacques Villeneuve		Vanwall Vandervell 680	HYPERCAR
37	88	Ryan Hardwick Zacharie Robichon Harry Tincknell		Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM
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