The Latest Breaking News from Sebring

Antonio Fuoco set what turned out to be the benchmark time of 1m45.067s at the wheel of the quicker of the two brand-new Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercars, which are making their race debut this weekend.

The French-Canadian, F1 champion with Williams in 1997, admitted that he is still short of laps in the Vanwall-Gibson Vandervell 680 as he prepares for his return to prototype racing in Friday’s Sebring 1000 Miles, but stressed that he just needs time in the car “to figure it all out”.

Brendon Hartley set the benchmark time of 1m47.272s early in the one-hour session aboard the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID, before Kamui Kobayashi lapped three tenths quicker soon after to record 1m46.954s in the sister #7 car.

Ryo Hirakawa knocked Ferrari driver James Calado off the top spot in the dying minutes of the one-hour Free Practice 1 session with a time more than half a second quicker than the Toyota Le Mans Hypercar managed in last weekend’s official pre-season Prologue test. 

You won’t often find me down at Turn 1 right at the start of the first session, not for a race meeting nor a test. And certainly not when it kicks off at 08:45 in the morning and after I’d crawled off a transatlantic fight the previous afternoon. But early…

Although Tower Motorsports was able to repair its damaged Oreca following a shunt for John Farano in qualifying for January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, the team suffered mechanical issues in the opening half-hour of the race that left McLaughlin, fellow Penske IndyCar ace Josef Newgarden, Farano and Kyffin Simpson having…

The BoP published on Wednesday ahead of this weekend’s official two-day WEC pre-season Prologue test at Sebring gives two tables, one for the opening round at the Florida venue on 17 March and one for the subsequent Algarve, Spa and Le Mans events.

Keating will team up with Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone in the WEC, but says the technique required to extract pace from the C8.R is not like anything he had encountered previously.

Jacques Villeneuve will be on the pace when he returns to full-time racing with Vanwall in the World Endurance Championship this year, according to team-mate Esteban Guerrieri.