Sebring: Lopez tops day 1 for WEC + Paul Foster's gallery

The FIA WEC is back on track this weekend with the 1000 Miles of Sebring, with the race being run after the 12 Hours of Sebring for the IMSA Series. In the opening practice sessions, Jose-Maria Lopez set the best time of 1m41.730s on first flying lap of session to ensure No.7 Toyota TS 050 HYBRID tops times in FP2.

He beat of the No.8 Toyota. The fastest of the non-hybrid cars was SMP Racing outpace Rebellion Racing as No.17 car places third with Frenchman Stephane Sarrazin peaks with a 1m43.009 to get within 0.5s of No.8 Toyota.

In LMGTE PRO, Alex Lynn kept the Aston Martin on top with a fastest lap of 1m57.792s in No.97 Aston Martin Racing. Lynn just 0.033s ahead of No.67 Ford GT which sees Harry Tincknell set second fastest time.

Stephane Richelmi posted the fastest LMP2 time with a 1m47.716s lap in No.38 Jackie Chan DC Racing car. Second in class was the No.36 Signatech Alpine Matmut entry with Nicolas Lapierre ahead of the TDS Racing again place third with Matthieu Vaxiviere.

Finally in GTE AM, Gulf Racing’s Ben Barker set the fastest with a 1m59.327 ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella in the Spirit of Race Ferrari.

Full results can be found here.

Paul Foster was on the scene to catch the action.

#70 MR Racing Ferrari 488 GTE: Motoaki Ishikawa, Olivier Beretta, Eddie Cheever , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#1 Rebellion Racing Rebellion R-13: Mathias Beche, Neel Jani, Bruno Senna, 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

Race Fans, 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#29 Racing Team Nederland Dallara P217: Frits van Eerd, Giedo van der Garde, Nyck de Vries , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#82 BMW Team MTEK BMW M8 GTE: Antonio Felix da Costa, Bruno Spengler, Augusto Farfus , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 07: Ho-Ping Tung, Gabriel Aubry, Stéphane Richelmi , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#95 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR: Marco Sorensen, Nicki Thiim, Darren Turner, 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#90 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage: Salih Yoluc, Jonathan Adam, Charles Eastwood , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso, 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#88 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR: Gianluca Roda, Giorgio Roda, Matteo Cairoli , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

Michelin Tyre 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT: Andy Priaulx, Harry Tincknell, Jonathan Bomarito , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#17 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1: Stephane Sarrazin, Egor Orudzhev, Sergey Sirotkin , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#11 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1: Mikhail Aleshin, Vitaly Petrov, Brendon Hartley , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#10 Dragonspeed BR Engineering BR1: Henrik Hedman, Ben Hanley, Renger Van der Zande , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez, Kamui Kobayashi , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#3 Rebellion Racing Rebellion R-13: Nathanaël Berthon, Gustavo Menezes, Thomas Laurent , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#36 Signatech Alpine Matmut Alpine A470: Nicolas Lapierre, Andre Negrao, Pierre Thiriet , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

Ford GT Garage 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#81 BMW Team MTEK BMW M8 GTE: Martin Tomczyk, Nicky Catsburg, Alexander Sims , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#54 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE: Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci, Giancarlo Fisichella , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#28 TDS Racing Oreca 07: Francois Perrodo, Matthieu Vaxiviere, Loic Duval , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#31 Dragonspeed Oreca 07: Roberto Gonzalez, Pastor Maldonado, Anthony Davidson , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

#77 Dempsey Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR: Julien Andlauer, Matt Campbell, Christian Ried , 1000 Miles of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

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Photos, Paul Foster

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