Toyota ends WEC Prologue 4s clear of LMP1 privateers

Toyota ended the 30-hour FIA World Endurance Championship pre-season Prologue test at Paul Ricard with a one-two finish, beating its privateer LMP1 rivals by more than four seconds.

Mike Conway produced the fastest time of the test, recording a lap of 1:32.662 in the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid to put him more than 1.4 seconds clear of co-driver Sebastien Buemi in the final drivers' classification.

The sister #7 Toyota placed second, 1.9 seconds off the pace, with reserve driver Anthony Davidson posting its fastest time. Davidson was subbing in at the test for Fernando Alonso, who has Formula 1 duties in Bahrain this weekend, while former Toyota racer Alexander Wurz also completed some running with the team.

The leading LMP1 privateer team was SMP Racing, who finished four seconds back with the #11 BR Engineering BR1 AER shared by Mikhail Aleshin and Vitaly Petrov.

However, Toyota confirmed to multiple outlets including Sportscar365 that its fastest time was set outside the Equivalence of Technology regulations to try and stress test the cooling system on its car, skewing the times at the front of the pack.

Rebellion Racing finished the test fourth ahead of the second SMP entry, while ByKolles took P6 overall. Manor placed seventh and ninth with its new Ginetta LMP1 cars, split by DragonSpeed in P8.

DragonSpeed managed to top LMP2 through Pastor Maldonado, while Gianmaria Bruni lifted Porsche to the head of the field in GTE-Pro ahead of his first WEC campaign since his departure from Ferrari. GTE-Am was led by Matteo Cairoli in the #88 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR.

The new WEC season kicks off with the 6 Hours of Spa on May 6.