Fuji WEC: Ferrari leads first practice from Peugeot

Antonio Fuoco set a best time of 1m35.649s at the end of the 90-minute session in the #50 Ferrari 499P LMH, a massive 2.6 seconds up on the sister #51 machine as the track rapidly improved late on.

Best of the rest in third was the #94 Peugeot 9X8, followed by the two works Penske Porsche 963s in fourth and fifth, while home favourite Toyota was sixth and seventh with its two GR010 HYBRIDs.

Despite the looming threat of Typhoon Yun-yeung, Friday morning's 90-minute session started on schedule at 11am local time in wet conditions and passed largely without incident.

Almost every Hypercar class manufacturer enjoyed a stint at the top of the times, as the track steadily dried out.

Ferrari took command of the times with a little over 30 minutes to go as James Calado went quickest in the #51 car, with team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi becoming the first driver to breach the 1m40s mark when he set a 1m39.198s with 22 minutes left on the clock.

Fuoco then traded the top time with Giovinazzi as he took over at the wheel of the #50 Ferrari, with Porsche man Michael Christensen briefly snatching the advantage before Fuoco went faster again, posting a 1m37.616s and then a 1m35.649s after switching to slick tyres.

Giovinazzi set the best time in the #51 car of 1m38.258s on wets, just over four tenths up on late improver Gustavo Menezes in the #94 Peugeot.

Christensen's time was eclipsed late on by his opposite number in the sister #6 Porsche, Laurens Vanthoor, who posted a 1m38.729s to go fourth-fastest.

Mike Conway set the best time for Toyota of 1m39.251s in the #7 car, four hundredths quicker than Brendon Hartley in the #8 car in a subdued opening session for the Japanese manufacturer.

Completing the top 10 were the second of the Peugeots, the #93 car in which Paul di Resta set the best time, the solo Cadillac V-Series.R of Alex Lynn and the Proton Competition customer Porsche of Harry Tincknell.

The JOTA Porsche enjoyed a lengthy spell at the top of the times in the opening half of the session when conditions were at their worst, but ended up 11th in the Hypercar class and slower than the team's LMP2 car, which topped that class.

Oliver Rasmussen put in a late flyer of 1m40.781s aboard the #28 ORECA 07 to take the top spot in LMP2, almost two seconds up on nearest rival Filip Ugran in the #9 Prema machine.

United Autosports was third in class courtesy of a late effort from Ben Hanley - standing in for Tom Blomqvist this weekend - in the #23 entry.

Topping the times by an even wider margin in GTE Am was the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Mikkel Pedersen on a 1m43.538s.

That was almost four seconds up on Davide Rigon, who went second-fastest in the #54 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE.

A sole full-course yellow was called at the one-hour mark, but this was purely procedural rather than in response to any accident.

FP2 is scheduled to begin at 3.30pm local time, but more rain is forecast for later in the day, casting doubt on whether the session will run as planned.

Fuji WEC - First practice results:

Pos.	No.	Drivers	Car	Class	time	gap
1	50	Antonio Fuoco  Miguel Molina  Nicklas Nielsen	Ferrari 499P	HYPERCAR	1'35.649
2	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi  James Calado  Antonio Giovinazzi	Ferrari 499P	HYPERCAR	1'38.258	2.609
3	94	Loïc Duval  Gustavo Menezes  Stoffel Vandoorne	Peugeot 9X8	HYPERCAR	1'38.693	3.044
4	6	Kevin Estre  Andre Lotterer  Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 963	HYPERCAR	1'38.729	3.080
5	5	Dane Cameron  Michael Christensen  Frédéric Makowiecki	Porsche 963	HYPERCAR	1'38.876	3.227
6	7	Mike Conway  Kamui Kobayashi  Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'39.251	3.602
7	8	Sebastien Buemi  Brendon Hartley  Ryo Hirakawa	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'39.291	3.642
8	93	Paul di Resta  Mikkel Jensen  Jean-Eric Vergne	Peugeot 9X8	HYPERCAR	1'39.309	3.660
9	2	Earl Bamber  Alex Lynn  Richard Westbrook	Cadillac V-Series.R	HYPERCAR	1'39.584	3.935
10	99	Neel Jani  Gianmaria Bruni  Harry Tincknell	Porsche 963	HYPERCAR	1'40.085	4.436
11	28	David Heinemeier Hansson  Pietro Fittipaldi  Oliver Rasmussen	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'40.781	5.132
12	38	Antonio Felix da Costa  Will Stevens  Ye Yifei	Porsche 963	HYPERCAR	1'40.953	5.304
13	4	Esteban Guerrieri  Tristan Vautier  Joao Paulo de Oliveira	Vanwall Vandervell 680	HYPERCAR	1'41.483	5.834
14	9	Filip Ugran  Bent Viscaal  Juan Manuel Correa	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'42.661	7.012
15	23	Josh Pierson  Ben Hanley  Oliver Jarvis	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'42.924	7.275
16	10	Ryan Cullen  Matthias Kaiser  Gabriel Aubry	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'42.984	7.335
17	34	Jakub Smiechowski  Fabio Scherer  Albert Costa	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'43.204	7.555
18	36	Matthieu Vaxivière  Julien Canal  Charles Milesi	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'43.218	7.569
19	22	Frederick Lubin  Philip Hanson  Filipe Albuquerque	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'43.230	7.581
20	31	Sean Gelael  Ferdinand Habsburg  Robin Frijns	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'43.403	7.754
21	41	Rui Andrade  Robert Kubica  Louis Deletraz	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'43.490	7.841
22	77	Christian Ried  Mikkel Pedersen  Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'43.538	7.889
23	63	Doriane Pin  Andrea Caldarelli  Daniil Kvyat	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'44.139	8.490
24	35	André Negrão  Memo Rojas  Olli Caldwell	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'44.816	9.167
25	54	Thomas Flohr  Francesco Castellacci  Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'47.198	11.549
26	56	PJ Hyett  Gunnar Jeannette  Matteo Cairoli	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'47.230	11.581
27	83	Luis Perez Companc  Lilou Wadoux  Alessio Rovera	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'47.250	11.601
28	777	Satoshi Hoshino  Casper Stevenson  Tomonobu Fujii	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'47.493	11.844
29	98	Ian James  Daniel Mancinelli  Alex Riberas	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'47.913	12.264
30	21	Hiroshi Koizumi  Simon Mann  Kei Cozzolino	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'48.414	12.765
31	60	Claudio Schiavoni  Matteo Cressoni  Alessio Picariello	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'49.060	13.411
32	86	Michael Wainwright  Riccardo Pera  Ben Barker	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'49.199	13.550
33	85	Sarah Bovy  Michelle Gatting  Rahel Frey	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'49.455	13.806
34	57	Takeshi Kimura  Scott Huffaker  Ritomo Miyata	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'49.706	14.057
35	33	Ben Keating  Nicolas Varrone  Nicky Catsburg	Chevrolet Corvette C8.R	LMGTE AM	1'50.043	14.394
36	25	Ahmad Al Harthy  Michael Dinan  Charlie Eastwood	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'53.388	17.739