WEC Sebring: Toyota fastest but suffers crash in truncated final practice

Kamui Kobayashi set a blistering time of 1m45.783s in the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID to lead a one-two finish for the Japanese marque ahead of Thursday’s afternoon qualifying for the Sebring 1000 Miles.

The 36-year-old set his fastest lap just 20 minutes into the 60-minute practice session, dethroning the #50 Ferrari that had sat atop the timesheets with Antonio Fuoco at the wheel.

His time was a full 1.2s quicker than Wednesday’s benchmark time set by Brendon Hartley in the sister #8 car and cemented Toyota’s status as the favourite for pole position in the expanded 11-car Hypercar class.

However, it wasn’t a clean session for Toyota with Kobayashi’s teammate Lopez hitting the barriers at Turn 13 rear-first in the final 10 minutes of practice, a year on from his double incident that allowed rival Alpine to win the race.

The impact led to some visible damage to the #7 GR010 Hybrid and, with Nicklas Nielsen also crashing his #50 Ferrari at almost the same time, the session was red-flagged with just under six minutes left on the clock.

A decision was made not to resume practice, ensuring the #7 Toyota would not be overhauled at the top of the timesheets.

Hartley ensured Toyota finished first and second despite the late drama, but he ended up more than six tenths adrift of Kobayashi despite having set his quickest lap time just second after his Japanese squadmate.

Ferrari was again Toyota’s quickest challenger in practice, with Fuoco’s early time of 1m46.77s good enough for third on the timesheets. Ferrari, too, will have some damage to inspect though after Nielsen hit the barriers after running over the kerbs in the final part of the session.

Cadillac jumped to fourth late in the final 10 minutes when Alex Lynn lapped the Sebring International Circuit in 1m47.155s in the #2 Chip Ganassi Racing V-Series.R.

Peugeot enjoyed its most competitive outing of the weekend so far with Mikkel Jensen lapping the #93 9X8 in 1m47.965s to finish, although it was still two seconds slower than the fastest time of the day.

The two Porsche Penske cars finished sixth and eighth respectively, with Michael Christensen the fastest of the two in the #5 963 LMDh.

The two Porsches were separated by Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari 499P, while the sole Glickenhaus finished 10th with Romain Dumas at the wheel.

The #4 Vanwall stopped on track just after the pit exit at the start of practice, with Tom Dillmann reporting a lack of power from the car’s non-hybrid Gibson engine. A full course yellow had to be deployed to retrieve the car and Vanwall was unable to repair the car in time to send it back on track, losing a full-hour of mileage as a result.

Pietro Fittipaldi again led the way for Jota in the LMP2 division, improving his own benchmark from Wednesday to a 1m50.102s in the #28 Oreca-Gibson 07.

Philip Hanson ended up second in the #22 United Autosports Oreca with a time that was less than a tenth slower than what Fittipaldi managed, while third place went to the other Jota LMP2 entry piloted by Yifei Ye.

Oliver Jarvis’ time of 1m50.291s in the #23 Oreca made it a duopoly for Jota and United at the sharp end of the LMP2 field, as the four cars from the two teams were separated by just 0.163s seconds at the end of the session.

Lamborghini driver Mirko Bortolotti put the #63 Prema in fifth place with his best effort of 1m1m50.409s, which was 0.281s down on the fastest class time of the session.

In GTE Am, factory Aston Martin driver Nicki Thiim set the fastest time in the #98 Northwest AMR Vantage GTE, beating the #86 GR Racing Porsche of Riccardo Pera by 0.043s.

Daniel Serra finished another 0.011s apart in third position in the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE.

WEC Sebring - FP3 results:

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	7	Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'45.783
2	8	Sébastien Buemi Brendon Hartley Ryo Hirakawa	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'46.392	0.609
3	50	Antonio Fuoco Miguel Molina Nicklas Nielsen	Ferrari 499P	HYPERCAR	1'46.777	0.994
4	2	Earl Bamber Alex Lynn Richard Westbrook	Cadillac V-Series.R	HYPERCAR	1'47.155	1.372
5	93	Paul di Resta Mikkel Jensen Jean-Eric Vergne	Peugeot 9X8	HYPERCAR	1'47.965	2.182
6	5	Dane Cameron Michael Christensen Frédéric Makowiecki	Porsche 963	HYPERCAR	1'48.303	2.520
7	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado Antonio Giovinazzi	Ferrari 499P	HYPERCAR	1'48.425	2.642
8	6	Kevin Estre Andre Lotterer Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 963	HYPERCAR	1'48.485	2.702
9	94	Loic Duval Gustavo Menezes Nico Müller	Peugeot 9X8	HYPERCAR	1'48.602	2.819
10	28	David Heinemeier Hansson Pietro Fittipaldi Oliver Rasmussen	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.128	4.345
11	22	Frederick Lubin Philip Hanson Filipe Albuquerque	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.218	4.435
12	48	David Beckmann Ye Yifei Will Stevens	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.256	4.473
13	23	Josh Pierson Tom Blomqvist Oliver Jarvis	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.291	4.508
14	63	Doriane Pin Mirko Bortolotti Daniil Kvyat	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.409	4.626
15	36	Matthieu Vaxiviere Julien Canal Charles Milesi	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.467	4.684
16	9	Filip Ugran