FIA WEC, Friday at Silverstone, 2017

The inaugural round of the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship kicks off this Easter weekend at Silverstone in Northamptonshire, England.

And what a great start to the weekend it was for the Toyota Gazoo Racing Team, finishing on top of the timing screens in both Free Practice 1 and 2 on Friday. The Buemi/Davidson/Nakajima #8 clocked a 1:38.210 in FP2, a mere 0.234 seconds ahead of the sister car of Conway/Kobayashi/Lopez.

Anthony Davidson: “Today we ran without any problems with the car, I was happy with the balance generally and we didn’t have to do much in terms of set-up changes. Now we wait to see what our competitors do tomorrow but I’m already looking forward to the race on Sunday.”

Porsche finished FP2 3rd and 4th with the remaining LMP1 of Bykolles Racing finishing in 7th having been separated from the pack by the LMP2’s #26 G-Drive Oreca and the #36 Signatech Alpine.

The GTE Pro class had the #92 Porsche 911 RSR of Christensen and Estre ‘just’ edging to the front with a mere 0.300 of a seconds covering the first five places. The gap was just as close in GTE Am with 0.500 seconds between the #86 Gulf Racing UK 911 and the Singaporean entry of Clearwater Racing’s Ferrari 488 GTE competing in their first season of the FIA WEC.

Today’s schedule:

09:40 – 10:40 – Free Practice 3

13:00 – 13:20 – Qualifying – LMGTE Pro and LMGTE Am

13:30 – 13:50 – Qualifying – LMP1 & LMP2