WEC: Toyota tops times in Sebring’s final practice, then crashes

Toyota Gazoo Racing completed a hat-trick of best times in the practice sessions preceding this year’s FIA World Endurance Championship’s season-opener, the 1000 Miles of Sebring

Kamui Kobayashi topped his second practice session in as many days, before the very same No.7 GR010 Hybrid Hypercar was crashed against a tyre wall at T17 by his team-mate, José María López.

A 1m45.783s lap from the Japanese ace was entire 1.8s faster than last year’s pole position time. Kobayashi’s flyer was also 0.6s quicker than the best lap of Brendon Hartley in the sister machine.

Antonio Fuoco set third best lap time, but his team-mate Nicklas Nielsen went off track just before the red flag caused by López, as the result, the Ferrari 499P sustained minor damage.

Cadillac Racing placed fourth for the third time in as many sessions as Alex Lynn set the best time of 1m47.155s in the new V-Series.R.  The US manufacturer was however forced to sit out a period of the session owing to a penalty for Richard Westbrook’s contact with No.88 Dempsey Proton Porsche in Free Practice 2 held yesterday.

Mikkel Jensen managed fifth in the No.93 Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8 as team continues to make progress on what is its first Sebring visit. Porsche Penske ended the session sixth after a late best time of 1m48.303 set by Michael Christensen.

Pietro Fittipaldi again took Jota to the top of the LMP2 category with a best lap of 1m50.128s, which proved to be just under 0.1s ahead of the No.22 United Autosports entry driven by Philip Hanson.

In LMGTE Am, a 1m50.030s lap by Nicki Thiim saw the Northwest AMR topping the category, just ahead of Riccardo Pera and Daniel Serra, with the 13-car-strong class the top three covered by 0.054s, while the top six separated by just 0.180s.