Alonso tops final Silverstone WEC practice

Fernando Alonso led Toyota to the head of the timesheets in the final FIA World Endurance Championship practice session at Silverstone on Saturday morning with a new fastest time of the weekend.

Two-time Formula 1 world champion Alonso was left to settle for second place in both FP1 and FP2 on Friday as part of the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid crew as the sister #7 Toyota led the way.

Alonso managed to bounce back in fashion by getting in an early lap in FP3 to shoot to the top of the timesheets, recording a best lap of 1m37.677 to finish more than 1.6 seconds clear of the field.

SMP Racing managed to break Toyota's streak of one-two finishes at Silverstone as its pair of BR Engineering BR1 cars finished second and third respectively, led by Stephane Sarrazin in the #17 car, with the second #11 entry including Jenson Button finishing the session P3.

The Friday pace-setting #7 Toyota slipped to fourth place in final practice at Silverstone as Kamui Kobayashi finished 2.3 seconds off Alonso's fastest time, while Rebellion Racing's two cars followed in fifth and sixth overall, the latter being the #1 R13 Gibson, which returned to the track after missing FP2 following Bruno Senna's crash early on Friday.

TDS Racing managed to lead the LMP2 class with its #28 Oreca 07 Gibson, finishing more than seven-tenths of a second clear of the two Jackie Chan DC Racing entries in second and third in class.

Ford led the way once again in GTE-Pro, claiming a one-two finish with its pair of Ford GTs. Andy Priaulx set the fastest time in the class in the #67 Ford to finish six-tenths of a second clear of the #66 entry, with the #95 Aston Martin Racing car taking third overall.

Aston Martin managed to top the standings in GTE-Am as defending champions Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda took P1 in the #98 Aston Martin Vantage, edging out the #70 MR Racing Ferrari 488 GTE by just 0.045 seconds.

The session went by without any major incident, but was cut short by three minutes after a bollard came loose and appeared on the circuit, prompting officials to throw a red flag and opt not to resume the session.

Qualifying for the WEC 6 Hours of Silverstone takes place at 12pm local time.