Brendon Hartley posted a late quick lap in the Porsche Team 919 Hybrid to protect Porsche’s 100% record as the quickest car in all of the 2016 FIA WEC Prologue sessions so far.
Hartley’s 1m37.886s lap in the final moments came after his team mates Timo Bernhard and Mark Webber had enjoyed cockpit time, as the German marque continued to gather data on their revised LMP1 challenger.
Toyota’s Stéphane Sarrazin had earlier achieved the fastest lap of the morning. The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver, who shared the cockpit with Anthony Davidson and Kamui Kobayashi, set an initial fastest lap of 1m38.273s in the brand new Japanese LMP1 challenger.
However it wasn’t all plain sailing for Toyota. Kobayashi stopped his Toyota TS050 HYBRID on the circuit in the final hour, causing a red flag as the TS050 HYBRID had to be recovered.
With the public being granted free access to see the field of 29 cars in warm spring sunshine, a carnival atmosphere soon spread across the busy paddock. The fans witnessed Audi Sport finishing the session in third position. Lotterer, Tréluyer and Fässler will again drive the new Audi R18 today.
In the intensely competitive LMP2 class, Gustavo Menezes continued to impress on his public WEC debut. The American again topped the time sheets, today with a fine 1m46.974s lap in the Signatech Alpine A460-Nissan, beating the G-Drive Racing ORECA 05-Nissan of René Rast, Roman Rusinov and Nathanael Berthon into second position.
AF Corse again locked-out the top two positions in the LMGTE Pro class as Sam Bird continued to find increased pace in the No.71 Ferrari 488 GTE car. The Briton's 1m58.083s lap was shadowed by Gianmaria Bruni’s 1m58.362s effort in the No.51 car.
In the LMGTE Am class Gulf Racing continued its positive Prologue test and headed the times with Michael Wainwright setting a best of 1m58.818s in the evocatively-liveried Porsche 911 RSR.
The session was briefly interrupted by a Full Course Yellow period to pick up debris after the No.13 Rebellion R-One driven by Dominik Kraihamer suffered a puncture and Aston Martin Racing's Paul Dalla Lana was also stranded on the circuit due to a problem with his No.98 Aston Martin Vantage V8.
There was also an incident midway through the session between Tor Graves in the Manor Racing ORECA 05-Nissan and Sam Bird’s Ferrari 488 GTE. Both cars came away from the contretemps with minor damage.
The fans now get a chance to meet their heroes with an autograph session in the pitlane at 13.15 CET before the final three hour session of the Prologue begins at 14.00.
