Audi Leads Rain-Soaked FP3 at Silverstone

Audi continued to lead the way at Silverstone, setting the pace in a rain-soaked Free Practice 3 for Sunday’s FIA World Endurance Championship season-opening Six Hours of Silverstone.

The session got underway on a very wet Silverstone circuit, but the rain eased and conditions improved as the session went on.

Only a couple of minutes before the end of the session, André Lotterer set the fastest lap of the session, posting a 1:52.094 in his No. 7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro.

The No. 1 Toyota TS040 Hybrid, driven by Kazuki Nakajima, was second quickest. The Japanese driver’s fastest lap was 0.674 seconds slower than Lotterer’s time.

Porsche finished the session in third and fourth place, the No. 18 Porsche 919 Hybrid beating the No. 19 sister car by a tenth of a second. Both Porsches were over four seconds behind the Audi.

G-Drive Racing was on top of the timing charts in LMP2, the Ligier JS P2 finishing the session with a fastest lap of 2:04.835.

KCMG’s new Oreca 05 Nissan was second fastest in the class, albeit over two seconds behind the Ligier. Strakka Racing’s No. 42 Dome S103 finished in third place.

In GTE-Pro it was the No. 92 Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 911 RSR that set the fastest lap time, edging out the No. 95 Aston Martin Racing Vantage by just 0.047 seconds.

The No. 91 Porsche 911 RSR was third fastest, despite a small off earlier in the session.

AF Corse’s No. 81 Ferrari 458 Italia set the pace in GTE-Am, outpacing the Dempsey Racing-Proton Porsche and the No. 96 Aston Martin Racing Vantage.

In addition to the Manthey incident, there were a number of other minor offs during the 60-minute session, including separate incidents for the No. 2 Toyota and No. 36 Signatech-Alpine, the latter which required a Full Course Yellow.

Conditions are expected to be dry for qualifying, which gets underway at 12 p.m. local.

RESULTS: Practice 3