Lopez tops opening WEC Prologue test session for Toyota

Jose Maria Lopez headed up a one-two finish for Toyota in the opening session of the FIA World Endurance Championship's pre-season 'Prologue' test in Barcelona on Tuesday, leading defending world champion Sebastien Buemi.

Lopez split duties in the #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid with full-season teammates Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Conway through the opening four-hour session at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with the Argentine recording a best lap of 1m29.991s.

The effort was enough to give Lopez P1 by two-tenths of a second from Buemi in the #8 Toyota, which he shared with Kazuki Nakajima and new teammate Brendon Hartley, the trio racking up more than 100 laps.

Rebellion Racing finished the session P3 and P4 with its pair of R13 Gibson entries, led by Gustavo Menezes in the #3 car, while Team LNT managed 15 laps with its Ginetta G60 with Stephane Sarrazin behind the wheel ahead of its LMP1 class debut at Silverstone in September.

United Autosports set the pace in LMP2 as the team completed its first public running with its new Oreca 07 chassis, with Paul di Resta recording the best time in class to lead Signatech Alpine's Andre Negrao by three-tenths of a second.

Ferrari factory team AF Corse took a one-two finish in GTE-Pro, led by Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, while Team Project 1 topped GTE-Am with Matteo Cairoli in the #57 Porsche 911 RSR.

Running resumes at 5pm local time in Spain and extends until 9pm, with a further eight hours of running scheduled for Wednesday in Barcelona.