Toyota Gazoo Racing ended up setting the fastest time of the opening Free Practice session of the 2018 6 Hours of Fuji, which was heavily interrupted after just 20 minutes running by a 30 minute red flag due to issues with the circuit.
At two separate corners, the bolted ‘sausage’ kerbs were causing problems, one section having come adrift completely at Turn 4, with others elsewhere requiring fixing bolts to be re-tightened after a full circuit inspection. The lost half hour was reinstated to the session time.
The fastest time of the session, on the drying circuit following rain throughout the morning, was the No. 8 Toyota TS050 HYBRID, Sebastien Buemi setting a 1:25.847. The #7 ended up second with a 1:26.381.
The best privateer LMP1 time saw Jenson Button third fastest, a 1:26.890 in the #11 SMP Racing BR1 AER half a second back from the slower of the Toyotas, a full second off Buemi’s best with the best of the Rebellions a further three tenths back. On the penultimate flying lap of the session, Ben Hanley, in the #10 Dragonspeed BR1 Gibson tripped the speed trap at 321.4 km/h – 200.875 mph, 45 km/h faster at that point than the Toyota that topped the session.
The #28 TDS Racing Oreca set fastest time in LMP21:30.360 from Matthieu Vaxiviere a full 1.3 seconds clear of the second fastest in the session, the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca.
It was a Ford atop the times in GTE Pro, the #66 of Stefan Mucke with a 1:38.555 ahead of the Porsches and the sister Ford GT.
The #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche topped GTE AM for much of the session, the 911 RSR though was topped by the checkered flag by Pedro Lamy’s best effort in the #98 Aston Matin.
The #56 Project 1 Porsche had an interrupted session, grinding to a halt between T3 and T4, bringing out local yellows before being removed to a pace of safety, the car did not rejoin the session.
