For the first time since its Le Mans debut the Toyota TS030 Hybrid set the fastest time in a FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) session, Nicolas Lapierre taking the Hybrid around the Interlagos track in 1:23.272.
Lapierre and the Toyota Racing team paced the session in some style, the #7 car fastest for all but the opening nine minutes of the 90 minute session, first after laps from Alex Wurz before Lapierre moved the bar down to 1:23.272 just before the end of the session at the end of an eight lap stint in the car, setting not only the best lap of the session, but the best lap so far as teams continue to dial cars into the Brazilian track on track conditions markedly improved from the first session.
Adding to the dominance of the TS030 was the fact that Wurz’s earlier fastest time – 1:23.623 – was still faster than any of Audi’s drivers could manage as Lucas di Grassi and Benoit Treluyer put the #2 and #1 R18s second and third respectively.
With the three manufacturer cars covered by just 0.628 seconds the best privateer was under a second off the overall pace, Peter Dumbreck easily the best of the rest for JRM with rivals Strakka Racing fifth fastest overall, but over second adrift of the Scotsman.
The pair of Signatech Nissan ORECA 03 set the best two times in LMP2. Franck Mailleux (#23) and Roman Rusinov (#26) split by just three-thousandths of a second in favour of the Frenchman. Behind the third placed Starworks Motorsport HPD it was – again – a matter of thousandths between teammates. There the pair of OAK Racing Morgan-Nissans were separated by just a single thousandth, Olivier Pla ahead of Dominik Kraihamer, with Lotus driver James Rossiter just another 0.006 seconds behind, the top seven in class covered by less than half a second.
Almost the same split the top two in GTE Pro, Aston Martin Racing leading Team Felbermayr–Proton as the two AF Corse Ferrari’s were – in a rare occurrence – off the pace. Fernando Rees was by far the fastest man in the Am ranks for Larbre Competition, setting the best time in class by over a second with Paolo Ruberti the distant second fastest for Felbermayr-Proton.
