Vanthoor Quickest for Porsche in Fuji FP1

Photo: Nick Dungan/Porsche

Laurens Vanthoor set the quickest time in Free Practice 1 for Sunday’s FIA World Endurance Championship round at Fuji Speedway, leading the way for Porsche Penske Motorsport.

The Belgian in the world championship-leading No. 6 Porsche 963 reeled off a 1:30.561 in the early stages of the 90-minute session to edge out the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Ryo Hirakawa by 0.010 seconds.

Nearly all of the quick times came in the opening laps of the session.

The No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Antonio Fuoco was third quickest, followed by the sister No. 5 Penske Porsche of Fred Makowiecki in fourth and the Nyck de Vries-driven No. 7 Toyota in fifth.

The Circuit of The Americas race-winning No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari was sixth, followed by the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8, No. 35 Alpine A424, No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche and No. 51 Ferrari, which completed the top-ten.

United Autosports paced LMGT3 with its No. 95 McLaren 720S GT3 driven by Marino Sato, who edged out the pair of Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3s on the time sheets, with Alessio Rovera and Davide Rigon at the wheel.

The session’s only red flag came out with 20 minutes to go for the No. 59 United McLaren of Gregoire Saucy, which stopped on track in Turn 10 after contact with the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R of Alex Lynn.

The session restarted with 14 minutes left on the clock.

Free Practice 2, which wraps up Friday’s activities, is set to get underway at 3:30 p.m. local time (2:30 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Free Practice 1

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John