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Practice report

Silverstone WEC: Alonso tops FP3, SMP splits Toyotas

Fernando Alonso set the quickest time in third practice for the FIA World Endurance Championship round at Silverstone, while the two SMP Racing entries split the Toyota hybrids.

#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso

#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso

JEP / Motorsport Images

Alonso enjoyed an almost-traffic free lap at the start of the hour-long session to record a best time of 1m37.677s in the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid, almost a second up on Jose Maria Lopez's Friday benchmark.

It was enough to top the session by 1.649s, as both SMP BR Engineering BR1s beat the #7 Toyota, whose best time of 1m40.033s was again set by Lopez.

Jenson Button was first to split the Toyotas in the #11 car with a 1m39.762s, but this was eclipsed by Stephane Sarrazin's effort of 1m39.326s in the sister #17 machine.

Rebellion Racing could only manage fifth and sixth with its pair of Gibson-powered R-13s, with Mathias Beche's best time in the #3 car in the early stages 3.8s off the pace.

Andre Lotterer was a further seven tenths back in the #1 machine that sat out Friday's second session in the wake of Bruno Senna's ankle-breaking crash.

Rounding out the LMP1 order were the #10 DragonSpeed BR1-Gibson and the #4 ByKolles ENSO CLM P1/01, which also had to miss second practice after suffering an oil leak in FP1.

Debris on track at Becketts meant the session was red-flagged with three minutes left on the clock and was not resumed.

Matthieu Vaxiviere kept the #28 TDS Racing Oreca at the head of the times in LMP2 with a best effort of 1m44.247s.

Jackie Chan DC Racing's pair of Orecas were next up, Nabil Jeffri in the #37 leading Stephane Richelmi in the #38, followed by Pastor Maldonado in the #31 DragonSpeed Oreca.

Ford locked out the top two positions in GTE Pro, with Harry Tincknell's 1m55.197s effort in the #67 car edging out Stefan Mucke in the #66 GT by six tenths.

Aston Martin continued its improved form with the third-best time, 1.2s off the pace with Nicki Thiim at the wheel of the #95 Vantage GTE, followed by the best of the Ferrari 488 GTEs in fourth and the lead Porsche 911 RSR in fifth.

The best of the BMW M8 GTEs enjoyed a brief spell at the head of the times midway through the session before dropping back to seventh.

GTE Am was led by Aston Martin courtesy of an early 1m58.460s lap by ex-F1 driver Pedro Lamy.

Session results:

Pos. # Drivers Car Class Time Gap
1 8 Spain Fernando Alonso 
Japan Kazuki Nakajima 
Switzerland Sébastien Buemi 
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'37.677  
2 17 France Stéphane Sarrazin 
Russian Federation Egor Orudzhev 
BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'39.326 1.649
3 11 United Kingdom Jenson Button 
Russian Federation Vitaly Petrov 
Russian Federation Mikhail Aleshin 
BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'39.762 2.085
4 7 Japan Kamui Kobayashi 
United Kingdom Mike Conway 
Argentina Jose Maria Lopez 
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'40.033 2.356
5 3 Switzerland Mathias Beche 
France Thomas Laurent 
United States Gustavo Menezes 
Rebellion R13 LMP1 1'41.557 3.880
6 1 Germany Andre Lotterer 
Switzerland Neel Jani 
Rebellion R13 LMP1 1'42.208 4.531
7 10 Sweden Henrik Hedman 
Netherlands Renger van der Zande 
United Kingdom Ben Hanley 
BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'43.244 5.567
8 4 United Kingdom Oliver Webb 
Austria Rene Binder 
ENSO CLM P1/01 LMP1 1'43.606 5.929
9 28 France Loic Duval 
France François Perrodo 
France Matthieu Vaxiviere 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'44.247 6.570
10 37 Malaysia Nabil Jeffri 
Malaysia Weiron Tan 
Malaysia Jazeman Jaafar 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'44.889 7.212
11 38 China Ho-Pin Tung 
Monaco Stéphane Richelmi 
France Gabriel Aubry 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'45.569 7.892
12 31 United Kingdom Anthony Davidson 
Venezuela Pastor Maldonado 
Mexico Roberto Gonzalez 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'45.815 8.138
13 29 Netherlands Giedo van der Garde 
Netherlands Nyck de Vries 
Netherlands Frits van Eerd 
Dallara P217 LMP2 1'46.576 8.899
14 36 France Nicolas Lapierre 
France Pierre Thiriet 
Brazil Andre Negrao 
Alpine A470 LMP2 1'46.763 9.086
15 50 France Romano Ricci 
France Erwin Creed 
Japan Yoshiharu Mori
Ligier JSP 217 LMP2 1'48.735 11.058
16 67 United Kingdom Harry Tincknell 
Guernsey Andy Priaulx 
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'55.197 17.520
17 66 Germany Stefan Mücke 
France Olivier Pla 
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'55.798 18.121
18 95 Denmark Marco Sorensen 
Denmark Nicki Thiim 
Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE PRO 1'56.408 18.731
19 71 United Kingdom Sam Bird 
Italy Davide Rigon 
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 1'56.629 18.952
20 91 Italy Gianmaria Bruni 
Austria Richard Lietz 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'56.670 18.993
21 51 United Kingdom James Calado 
Italy Alessandro Pier Guidi 
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 1'56.761 19.084
22 82 Portugal Antonio Felix da Costa 
Brazil Augusto Farfus 
BMW M8 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'56.862 19.185
23 97 Belgium Maxime Martin 
United Kingdom Alex Lynn 
Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE PRO 1'56.879 19.202
24 81 Netherlands Nick Catsburg 
Germany Martin Tomczyk 
BMW M8 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'56.916 19.239
25 92 Denmark Michael Christensen 
France Kevin Estre 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'58.149 20.472
26 98 Portugal Pedro Lamy 
Canada Paul Dalla Lana 
Austria Mathias Lauda 
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 1'58.460 20.783
27 70 Monaco Olivier Beretta 
Italy Eddie Cheever III 
Japan Motoaki Ishikawa 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 1'58.505 20.828
28 77 Germany Christian Ried 
Australia Matt Campbell 
France Julien Andlauer 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 1'58.948 21.271
29 54 Italy Giancarlo Fisichella 
Italy Francesco Castellacci 
Switzerland Thomas Flohr 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 1'59.104 21.427
30 88 Italy Gianluca Roda 
Italy Matteo Cairoli 
Italy Giorgio Roda 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 1'59.112 21.435
31 90 United Kingdom Jonathan Adam 
Turkey Salih Yoluc 
Ireland Charles Eastwood 
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 1'59.365 21.688
32 86 United Kingdom Michael Wainwright 
United Kingdom Benjamin Barker 
Australia Alex Davison 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 1'59.621 21.944
33 56 Germany Jörg Bergmeister 
United States Patrick Lindsey 
Norway Egidio Perfetti 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 1'59.788 22.111
34 61 Ireland Matthew Griffin 
Singapore Mok Weng Sun 
Japan Keita Sawa 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'00.424 22.747

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