Today’s third and final free practice session for the 6 Hours of Silverstone took place under cloudy skies but a dry track and these conditions are set to remain for qualifying later today.
Mark Webber showed in fine style that he has adapted quickly to international sports car racing by setting the fastest time overall. His No.20 Porsche 919 Hybrid lapped the Silverstone track in a time of 1:42.837, one tenth of a second ahead of the No.14 sister car of Romain Dumas. The two Porsches were ahead of the two Audi R18 e-tron quattros (1-2) and the two Toyota TS040 Hybrids (8-7), the latter also having just one tenth of a second between them.
Rebellion Racing had a mixed final practice this morning as the No.12 Lola Toyota of Mathias Beche stopped out on track after only 5 minutes and was not able to take any further part in the session. The No.13 in the hands of Fabio Leimer lapped at 1:44.169 which was only 0.172s behind the No.7 Toyota.
In LMP2 G-Drive Racing once again were at the top of the time sheets, Olivier Pla setting the best time of 1:49.484 in the No.26 Morgan Nissan. KCMG’s Tsugio Matsuda has quickly got up to speed with the team and the car, and was 0.63s behind, with the two SMP Racing ORECA 03 Nissans following behind in close order.
AF Corse and Ferrari enjoyed a buoyant FP3, its No.51 LMGTE Pro F458 Italia in the hands of Gianmaria Bruni lapping at 1:59.315 to head the category. British driver Sam Bird, driving the Italian team’s No.81 LMGTE Am Ferrari was extremely impressive around the track which he knows so well, and ended the session only two hundredths of a second behind the Pro entry. Second and third in the Pro class were the two Porsche Team Manthey 911 RSRs, a tenth of a second separating the two German entries.
8Star Motorsports No.90 Ferrari 458 Italia was also fast in LMGTE Am, Paolo Ruberti posting the second quickest time this morning (2:00.311), ahead of the No.61 AF Corse Ferrari of Marco Cioci.
While all the cars are on track together for the free practice sessions, qualifying is split into LMGTE Pro and Am (which takes place from 12:00 to 12:25 hrs) followed by LMP1 and LMP2 (at 12:35-13:00 hrs).
Full results can be found HERE
Fiona Miller
