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Lopez fastest as Dalla Lana has big off in final WEC practice

Image by LAT

By Stephen Kilbey - Mar 14, 2019, 7:26 PM ET

Lopez fastest as Dalla Lana has big off in final WEC practice

In the final WEC practice session ahead of qualifying for the Sebring 1000 Miles, Toyota continued to set the pace.

The best time came from Jose Maria Lopez, a 1m41.88s in the No. 7 TS050 HYBRID to better Fernando's benchmark time in the session by six tenths.

The big story of the session, though, wasn't Toyota's dominance in the times, but of an incident in GTE Am.

Paul Dalla Lana has left the No. 98 Aston Martin Racing mechanics in a race against time, after a big off at Turn 17 into the tires. The Canadian severely damaged the car's side and rear in the impact. With qualifying just hours away, the crew will be working overtime to repair the Vantage, which was nursed back to the pits after the impact by Dalla Lana.

No. 98 Aston Martin Racing Vantage of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda. Image by LAT.

That was the only notable off in the session. There were a few offs for a few cars, though none of them ended with any sort of damage bill.

Fastest of the LMP1 privateers for the first time this week was the No. 10 DragonSpeed BR1 AER, Renger van der Zande putting in a late 1m44.156s flyer to put the car ahead of the SMP BR1s and the Rebellion R-13s.

LMP2 meanwhile, was headed up by Gabriel Aubry in the No. 38 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA which leads the class standings. His time was just a tenth faster than Andre Negrao in the Signatech Alpine which continues to finish up second in each session this week.

Ford led the way in GTE Pro, former Sebring 12 Hours class winner Andy Priaulx putting the No. 67 Ganassi Ford ahead of the No. 51 AF Corse 488 GTE of Alessandro Pier Guidi. The two BMW M8 GTEs, run by MTEK, ended up third and fourth.

GTE Am, ended with a Porsche 1-2-3, the No. 77 Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche after a Matt Campbell flyer top of the sheets ahead of the team's sister car and the Project 1 example.

RESULTS

UP NEXT: Qualifying for the 1000 Miles of Sebring takes place at 9:30 p.m. ET.

Stephen Kilbey
Stephen Kilbey

UK-based Stephen Kilbey is RACER.com's FIA World Endurance Championship correspondent, and is also Deputy Editor of Dailysportscar.com He has a first-class honours degree in Sports Journalism and is a previous winner of the UK Guild of Motoring Writers Sir William Lyons Award.

Read Stephen Kilbey's articles

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