On the first day of practice for the seventh out of nine rounds of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) Mark Webber set the fastest lap of the day with the Porsche 919 Hybrid. The Australian lapped the 4.549 kilometre long Fuji International Speedway during a qualifying simulation on Friday afternoon in 1:24.074 minutes. In constantly dry conditions and with ambient temperatures around 20 degrees Celsius, he and his teammates Brendon Hartley (NZ) and Timo Bernhard (DE) covered 95 laps in total today. In the first session the reigning world champions were sixth (1:26.097 minutes).
The trio of Romain Dumas (FR), Neel Jani (CH) and Marc Lieb (DE) lost nearly an hour of track time for repairs during the first of two 90-minute practice sessions, and clocked up 64 laps. On the installation lap in the morning an oil leak occurred and the gearbox for the front axle’s electro motor needed to be changed. The championship leaders came fourth in both sessions (1:25.962/1:25.078 minutes).
Quotes after Free Practice:
Team Principal, Andreas Seidl:
“Thanks to the mechanics for the extremely quick gearbox change in the morning. We were still able to almost complete our planned programme in the two free practice sessions. Aside from the baseline set-up, the focus was on long runs for tyre evaluation and testing aerodynamic configurations. We have managed to constantly improve both 919 Hybrids. As expected, all six LMP1 cars are very close together, so we look forward to another exciting race weekend. Now we’ll analyse our data and hope to make the next step tomorrow.”
Drivers Porsche 919 Hybrid number 1
Brendon Hartley (26, New Zealand):
“Mark did a great job in his qualifying simulation to top the time sheets. I did a full stint and more actually, so we put a lot of laps on one set of tyres. Our performance looked competitive and I think it was a positive day for us.”
Timo Bernhard (35, Germany):
“For us everything went smoothly today. I didn’t do much mileage, but nevertheless I always enjoy driving here on the Speedway because as it is a nice and technical circuit.”
Mark Webber (40, Australia):
“Today there were beautiful dry conditions for all of us. The competition looks really tight with Toyota and Audi. In the afternoon I did a qualifying simulation and it went okay for me. It was a pretty competitive lap time, but on the long runs it also looks really tight. We expect more homework for tomorrow and a brilliant fight for qualifying.“
Timetable:
LMP1 Qualifying will be held on Saturday 15th October at:
14:30 Local Time (JST)
18:30 New Zealand (NZDT)
07:30 Central Europe (CEST)
