Jani fastest as Rebellion tops Spa FP3
LMP1 privateer Rebellion Racing topped the final practice session ahead of the World Endurance Championship’s season-opener at Spa-Francorchamps, with Neel Jani propelling the #1 car to first.
Jani was the first driver out in the #1 car and immediately set the pace in the Rebellion-Gibson R-13. First setting a 1m57.617s, he proceeded to lower the benchmark to a 1m57.120s on the net run. This time remained the fastest for the rest of the hour-long session.
After Toyota topped the times in both FP1 and FP2 on Thursday, Jani’s time is the first time that a privateer LMP1 team has topped a timesheet this weekend.
The #7 Toyota TS050 finished second on the timesheet, with FP2 pacesetter Mike Conway recording a 1m57.939s time. This, however, was nearly two seconds slower than his FP2 timesheet topping time, highlighting that FP3 is not representative of Toyota’s place in the competitive order.
The second Rebellion Racing entry was third on the timesheet after being edged out by Conway. The #17 SMP Racing AER turbo-powered BRI machine was fourth, with Stephane Sarrazin having posted the team’s best time of the session.
The second Toyota finished fifth. Fernando Alonso, who partners Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi in the #8 car, only took to the track in the final 10 minutes of the session.
The #6 SMP Racing machine was sixth, with DragonSpeed’s Gibson-powered BR Engineering #10 entry in seventh and ByKolles Racing Team in eighth, after only posting six laps in the session.
For Manor, FP3 was the third consecutive session in which both cars only left the garage to complete installation laps. Both Ginetta-Mechachrome G60-LT-P1’s were the only cars not to post lap times.
DragonSpeed’s LMP2 entry finished top of the second-tier class, with ex-Formula 1 race winner Pastor Maldonado setting the fastest time in the #31. The #26 G-Drive entry was second and only two tenths behind.
The Ganassi Ford team was once again at the top of the times in GTE-Pro. The #67 was propelled into first by Andy Priaulx mid-session, as he eclipsed the early benchmark set by Antonio Felix da Costa in the #82 BMW. The #66 Ganassi Ford was third in class.
Top of GTE-Am was the Dempsey-Proton Racing pair. The team also topped the class times in FP2, with the #77 leading the #88 by a tenth in FP3.