Toyota impresses at Fuji, Ferraris and Porsches well behind
Ferrari
General
- Ludo van Denderen
Toyota impressed during the second free practice for the 6 Hours of Fuji. The home Japanese team finished the dry-weather session in places one and two, with the best car (with Brendon Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa at the wheel) being over a second faster than the first non-Toyota. Team Jota's Porsche was third, with the Ferrari driven by Antonio Giovinazzi, among others, fourth shortly behind.
The first practice session of the sixth race in the World Endurance Championship was wet earlier in the day, but during practice the track dried up. In the ever-improving conditions, Ferrari was the fastest. Antonio Fuoco clocked a 1.35.649. The second Ferrari was 2.6 seconds slower in the morning, but still finished second. In third place was the first Peugeot.
The French team has Stoffel Vandoorne in one of its cars this weekend. The Belgian replaces Nico Müller, who is missing in Japan due to injury. The team does not want to disclose what is wrong with the Swiss driver, but assumes that he will relieve Vandoorne at the final race in Bahrain. Moreover, in Japan, André Lotterer (41) announced he had put a stop to his career in formula cars. The one-time F1 driver competed for Porsche in Formula E last season, but it was not a success. From now on, the German will focus entirely on his work for Porsche in the WEC.
LMP2 class with Team WRT fastest
In the LMP2 class, championship leader Team WRT (Andrade, Delétraz, Kubica) was fastest, ahead of Pietro Fittipaldi in the JOTA. The number 23 United Autosport set the third time, while Robin Frijns was fourth with the second Team WRT car. In the GT class, three Ferraris led the field.
