Buemi fastest for Toyota; Ford heads Porsche in LMGTE Pro
Sebastien Buemi topped the times in the first Free Practice session at Fuji Speedway...
The Headlines from FP1 at Fuji...
• Toyota’s Sebastien Buemi tops the times in damp but drying first Free Practice session at Fuji Speedway
• Reigning Le Mans winner Buemi set an early session best time of 1m25.847s in the No.8 Toyota TS 050 HYBRID
• Buemi’s time beats sister No.7 Toyota by 0.5 seconds
• Jenson Button sets several purple sector times during damp then drying session in his No.11 SMP Racing BR1-AER as British ace places 3rd
• Button’s teammate Vitaly Petrov later pits car with apparent brake issues
• Bruno Senna returns after recovering from injury from Silverstone crash. Brazilian’s No.1 Rebellion Racing R13-Gibson places 4th overall.
• Ford heads Porsche in LMGTE Pro as Stefan Mucke sets best of 1m38.555s lap in No.66 Ford GT
• No.91 Porsche of Richard Lietz and Gimmi Bruni places second ahead of Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre crewed 911 RSR
• No.67 Ford GT of Harry Tincknell and Andy Priaulx is fourth in class
• Aston Martin fifth with No.95 car of Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim
• LMP2 sees Matthieu Vaxiviere set the pace on 1m30.360s in TDS ORECA
• Silverstone winning Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA is second as Ho-Pin Tung sets time just under 0.3s away from quickest time
• Dragonspeed place third as Roberto Gonzalez, Anthony Davidson and Pastor Maldonado race for only the second time together
• Session interrupted for kerb repairs and is extended by thirty minutes
• LMGTE Am initially saw Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche lead the category as Matt Campbell sets a 1m39.925s best lap
• But Pedro Lamy sets quickest time of 1m39.763s in No.98 Aston Martin in final moments of session
• This out-paces the TF Sport Aston Martin driven by Jonny Adam which is just 0.2s in arrears of second placed Dempsey-Proton Porsche in third
• Egidio Perfetti stops his Team Project 1 Porsche on track midway through session with technical problem