WEC – Toyota takes the lead in FP1 in Shanghai

Beginning on a slightly damp track, the first free practice session for the 6 Hours of Shanghai, the penultimate round of the WEC, saw Toyota place its two TS040 Hybrids at the forefront. No. 8 by Anthony Davidson-Sébastien Buemi completed a lap in 1'49"833 and was 1"148 ahead of the No. 7 of Kazuki Nakajima-Stéphane Sarrazin-Alexander Wurz. In third place, we find the No. 18 Audi R2 e-tron quattro of Marcel Fässler-André Lotterer-Benoît Tréluyer, which is 2”146 behind the reference time. The Top 5 is completed by the Audi n°1 of Lucas di Grassi-Loïc duval-Tom Kristensen (+2 »782) and by Porsche 919 Hybrid n°20 by Timo Berhard-Brendon Hartley-Mark Webber.

In LM P2, the best time goes to the #2 Ligier JSP26-Nissan of G-Drive Racing entrusted to Julien Canal-Olivier Pla-Roman Rusinov, who posted a 1'57"147. The No. 30 Extreme Speed ​​Motosports HPD is eight tenths behind and the No. 03 KCMG Oreca 47 is nine tenths behind.

In GTE, it’s a Aston Martin registered in GTE Am which achieved, in 2'06"056, the best time, namely the n°98 of Paul Dalla Lana-Pedro Lamy-Richie Stanaway. It beat all the GTE Pros, the fastest car of which was the Ferrari 458 Italia n°51 by Gianmaria Bruni-Toni Vilander in 2’06”153. The two Porsche 911 RSRs are three tenths behind and the #97 Aston Martin six behind.

Note during this session the start of a fire affecting the No. 911 Porsche 88 RSR of the Proton Competition and the mechanical problems encountered by the No. 919 Porsche 14 Hybrid of Romain Dumas-Neel Jani-Marc Lieb, who was unable to perform the slightest flying trick. The latter had to face a problem with the batteries, which were, as a precaution, changed.

The second free practice session is scheduled for 15:30 p.m. local time, i.e. 8:30 a.m. French time.