The championship leading no8 Toyota TS040 started the weekend in China by topping the time sheets in the first Free Practice session in Shanghai. Sebastien Buemi, who celebrates his 26th birthday today, posted a 1m49.833 lap and it was all smiles in the Toyota garage as the no7 TS040 hybrid finished second fastest, with Stephane Sarrazin finishing 1.148s behind Buemi on a track that started damp after overnight rain but soon dried as the session progressed.
The two Audi R18 etron quattros finished 3rd and 4th fastest with the no2 car posting a time 0.3 seconds quicker than the no1 Audi. The no20 Porsche 919 finished the session in 5th, 3.2 seconds adrift of the fastest Toyota and 1.5 seconds ahead of the nr14 Porsche, which only completed 7 laps during the session.
The nr12 Rebellion R-One was the fastest of the LMP1-L competitors, 2.1s ahead of the nr13 R-One. The AER powered Lotus was 16th fastest with Pierre Kaffer completing 7 laps to shake the car down after it was rebuilt this week following the fire in Fuji.
The nr26 G-Drive Racing Ligier was the quickest car in the seven strong LMP2 class, with Roman Rusinov setting a 1m57.147 lap, 0.7 seconds ahead of the no30 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD-Honda of Ryan Dalziel and a further 0.2 seconds ahead of the no47 KCMG Oreca.
The second Free Practice session will take place at 15:30 (local) / 08:30 CET
CLICK HERE for the results from Free Practice 1
Jeff Carter
