Alonso quickest for Toyota in Spa WEC FP1

Fernando Alonso made a flying start to life as an official Toyota LMP1 driver by finishing fastest in the first practice session for this weekend's FIA World Endurance Championship season-opening 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.

Two-time F1 world champion Alonso will make his WEC debut this weekend with Toyota, starting his first full season in the sports car championship that will see him get two attempts to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time.

After finishing seventh in last weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix for McLaren, Alonso travelled to Germany to link up with the Toyota team before heading to Spa, with his first official laps in the Toyota TS050 Hybrid coming on Thursday in FP1.

After seeing teammate Sebastien Buemi complete two short stints, Alonso took over in the #8 Toyota 30 minutes into the session. He took just four flying laps to beat the benchmark set by Buemi by two-tenths of a second, with his effort of 1:58.392 going unbeaten to the end of FP1.


Toyota completed a one-two finish in FP1 as Mike Conway finished 0.237 seconds shy of Alonso’s time at the front in the sister #7 entry.

Rebellion Racing finished as the leading privateer in LMP1, with the gap to Alonso’s headline time standing at just 0.457s at the end of the session despite concerns about the performance gap to the hybrid cars in the WEC’s top class.

DragonSpeed took fourth overall in its first WEC session as an LMP1 team through Ben Hanley, followed by the second Rebellion in P5. ByKolles took sixth ahead of SMP Racing in P7.

DragonSpeed’s LMP2 entry finished top in its class thanks to ex-F1 driver Pastor Maldonado, who recored a best lap time of 2:03.494. The lap saw him finish six-tenths clear of the #36 Signatech Alpine Matmut Oreca 07 Gibson, with G-Drive Racing following a further one-tenth behind to take third in class.

Ford made an impressive start to the weekend in GTE-Pro as it romped to a one-two finish with its pair of Ford GTs. Andy Priaulx posted the fastest lap in the #67 Ford to lead the class ahead of Olivier Pla, with Porsche putting up the strongest fight in P3 and P4, albeit six-tenths off the pace.

GTE-Am saw Dempsey-Proton Racing lead the way with its Porsche 911 RSR, with the team’s #77 entry finishing third, the pair split by Gulf Racing in P2, also running a Porsche.